


The Mouse and The Lion

by Ludwiggle73



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 18th Century, Alternate Universe - Human, Aristocracy, Doggie Kuma, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, FACE Family, Family Drama, Forbidden Love, Forced Marriage, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-05 10:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12188580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludwiggle73/pseuds/Ludwiggle73
Summary: Marianne Bonnefoy and her son, Mathieu, are quite similar. They both like French more than English. They both have blond hair. They both feel trapped by Arthur Kirkland. And they both have hearts that belong to men who, for different reasons, are not allowed to have them.[FrUK, Frain. PruCan.](Nyo!France. Nyo!America.)





	1. Chapter 1

_**England, 1760** _

 

It began, as it tended to do, with a boy and a girl.

Rather, in this case, with a man and a lady, for their ages were twenty-two and sixteen, respectively. He was of higher class than she, but it was a different class entirely; they were the same moneyed species, but in every other respect—even in the money itself—they were endlessly different. He was the heir of a noble. She was the daughter of a ship captain. He was clad in a fine waisted frock coat, silver buttons gleaming in the lurid summer sunlight. She was in her finest sack gown, its pleats of alternating crimson and rose entrancing anyone who happened to glimpse her and the colors of love rippling round her legs as she sashayed through Golden Square on the arm of this esteemed gentleman. He did not look at her, and she did not look at him, but everyone else looked at them, over shoulders and around fans and through windows. The pair rarely found a moment to be alone, and even on a stroll like this, they were under constant surveillance. She found it suffocating; he found it mundane; both were exasperated by the other's finding.

He was Arthur Kirkland. She was Marianne Bonnefoi.

"We're to marry, then," he remarked, as if they'd been discussing it all along, when really they had not spoken since they left the mansion, when he told her, _It's the time to do it, if you'd like to have a stroll._ Always in that rather gruff manner of his; he really wasn't very good at expressing himself, but then every Englishman was like that. Just as they liked their women bound in whalebone stays, they themselves were restricted by their own stiff upper lips. She refused adamantly to be laced, even going as far as to brandish a small knife and declare in French that _The world will have me loose, or it will not have me at all!_ and put on a very convincing show of waving the blade toward her pale wrist, until the English dandies relented and allowed her to go about in the style of her homeland. The mother spoke no French, but one of the maids— _Margaret, but my mother calls me Maggie_ —was fluent enough to have a conversation with, and indeed to be understood by when denouncing English attire. Since the courting began, the mother and the maids seemed to be constant companions around the house, persistently offering her advice on how to behave, how to dress, how to be an Englishwoman. She ignored it all.

"Oh?" she asked, because she wasn't sure what else there was to say. She knew they were going to get married from the moment she came across the Strait. Business, that's what her father said it was; a business deal between his shipping company and the invisible lines in the waters which the English nobleman seemed to control. A fair trade, they called it. An alliance sworn, if not _in_ blood, then by the combining of it. She knew the pair of them were a walking taboo; she'd heard the whispers of _frog_ and _Frenchie_ behind her back, and behind his back, too. He simply ignored them and advised her to do the same. Nothing seemed to bother him, which would be a good thing, but nothing seemed to delight him, either. She had yet to see him smile once in the month they'd been courting. She longed to breach this strange distance he kept between them. Would it not be easier, then? If they _had_ to marry, would it not be better to speak to each other, to be friends? Or would they remain in silence until they met in the marital bed? Surely he would make a sound then. She didn't imagine it with much enthusiasm, however. If English life was this stuffy and flavorless in other areas, she had low hopes for the bedchamber.

They stopped walking now, for they had left Golden Square long behind and found themselves in the Conduit Fields, where archers were practicing with their targets. They stood a safe distance away, watching from the side as a row of five men stood as if rooted to the ground, their upper bodies beautifully firm beneath their outdated jerkins, all of them robust Robin Hoods. Marianne observed them with admiration; Arthur's thick brows lifted slightly in stoic acknowledgement of skill. He was not a large man, not at all. His father and younger brothers dwarfed him; even Marianne was an inch or so taller without wearing heels, which she didn't do now that they were courting and thus always side-by-side.

All at once, she decided what she would do. She looked at him and tightened her grip on his arm so he would look back at her, and she said in careful but thickly accented English, "I will marry you, but you must do three things for me."

Now his brow furrowed in confusion. "The marriage isn't a choice for either of us."

"I know this. But if you do not agree to my three things, I will give you a kick _dans la bite_ that will put you on your knees and I will throw myself in front of those archers and you will have no Bonnefoi to marry because she will be stuck full of arrows." She was getting better at her English every day, and the threat came out with relish despite the lack of color in the language. She wasn't exaggerating, either; with a mother dead of scarlet fever in '47, she was raised by sailors, and they had no qualms against fighting dirty. That was the way one had to be when pirates were making their last stand out on the roiling seas—and, indeed, when Englishmen were being bothersome when discussing marriage.

Arthur's green eyes searched her for a moment in that appraising manner his posh sort had, and finally he said, "What are your three things, then?"

" _Un._ When we are married, we must leave London. I will not raise my children in this rat nest of a city." _Rat nest_ was putting it lightly. Summer in France was airy and lovely, the breeze smelling of sea salt and ripe grapes, the evenings lasting forever with accordionists singing love songs in every street-corner café. In London? The churchyards stank of the rotting dead, the streets—aside from the cleanest in West End—reeked of the loads the nightsoil men carted away, and the Thames . . . indescribable. No wonder the English ladies didn't mind being laced up so tight they couldn't breathe; who would ever want to inhale the stinking breath of London?

Arthur's lips parted to protest, but he thought better of it. "Fine, we don't need to live in London. We could live in Oxford. Bristol, perhaps."

She had not heard of Bristol, but she knew of Oxford, and replied, "I do not want any city. I want a peaceful place, away from all of this." She swept her free hand to indicate the bustling, nonsensical lives of Britons. Always hurrying, hurrying even to spend time with friends! She could not comprehend it. Worrying yourself over relaxing? Utter madness. "I want somewhere green, with trees, meadows, flowers."

Arthur's jaw—a sweet thing, rounded and not masculine at all—had stiffened now, at last. "And if we're attacked by savage animals, robbed by bandits? Part of the rustic appeal, I suppose?"

Marianne shook her head. "We will not be bothered by animals, and if we are robbed, you or I will shoot the bandits."

He sighed with displeasure. "Fine. We shall live in the country. And your other conditions?"

" _Deux_. You must talk to me, and treat me like I am your friend. I want to know you. Who would like to live with a stranger? We must know each other, and become close." Teasingly, she added, "This may be hard for you."

He tossed his head like a horse, affronted, but at her kind laughter he calmed and even allowed a ghost of a smile. "Alright," he said, "I shall try to be friends with you. I say, it likely shall be hard, what with you being so French."

"Mm, and you being so English," she agreed, giving his arm a comradely squeeze. "And the final one." She moved her lips to his ear, her breath feathering his skin, and, not so comradely now, murmured, " _Trois._ You must love me, no matter what I may do. You must give me your heart to hold, and trust me to hold it gently in my hands. If you love me always, I will be a perfect wife for you. But if you do not, I will break your heart and you will long for me until you find death."

Arthur shivered beneath the summer sun. Marianne said nothing more; she had laid herself bare, and now it was he who must make the decision. The pair of them watched the archers loose their arrows into the targets, the power of man in body and mind, muscle and tool, combined to send a stick of death straight into the eye of a bull.

"Alright," said Arthur again, his voice different this time, thinner and yet more real. Green eyes met blue. Time itself seemed to tremble with the force of those two gazes. "Yes. I will always love you."

He stumbled over the words, words he had not said since he was just a boy, telling his mother he loved her before bed or something of the like. He was the worst of his kind; no word of emotion had passed his lips in over a decade. Even his brothers spoke of emotions, though it was always anger or happiness, never sadness, or fear, or love. But he kept it all within. After all, he was the one inheriting the nobility when his father died; a long way off from now, everyone hoped. It was not proper for a gentleman to experience something as trifling as anger, and to act upon it was to give up all civility. A single cross word could ruin an entire legacy forever. In aristocracy, there were eyes and ears everywhere, and always a mouth attached to bawl about what had happened.

Marianne smiled at her groom-to-be. She was a beautiful girl, that was undeniable, and he was a handsome lad, despite the eyebrows. They were both spiteful and gleeful creatures, though of course he was more internally so. They would get along quite well, he suspected. He would need to spend more time with her if he was to fall in love, and he would need to come back to London when his father died, but that gave them a space of what he assumed would be about thirty years. Thirty years of happy marriage sounded agreeable to him. Plenty of time for children, memories, those such things. His future sprawled in front of him like the countryside he would soon live in.

"Good," she said. "It is a deal." They turned to head back to the Kirklands' mansion in Golden Square, and as they made their way along the cobbles, the finality of it all set in for her. No more waiting. No more living with Mrs. Kirkland and her chirping maids, Annie and Dorothy and Maggie who spoke French. No floundering, lost in a sea of heaving hoopskirts. In a month's time, her life would be something totally different than what it had ever been before. But one could not be pessimistic, so she said perkily, "We're to marry, then."

"Oh?"

 

**. . .**

 

The wedding was catered by English cooks, and so it was pointless in the eyes of Marianne. The whole thing was a blight, really, because the English hens had convinced her to wear a corseted wedding dress, and she spent the whole time feeling like she was about to faint. She wouldn't have entertained the notion if not for the fact that the dress had been passed down three decades, and she was now the fourth to wear it. Was it out of fashion? Absolutely. Uncomfortable and dusty where it trailed the ground? Indubitably. But she bore the burden, and once the ceremony was over, she let the assembled takers-off remove the cursed thing. She wore a much nicer evening gown after that, Arthur carrying her—with some effort—out to the waiting carriage. She asked, "Where are we going?"

Arthur gave a slight smile. "Home."

To her relieved delight, he was not referring to Golden Square. Not in the slightest. Their journey began early in the evening and ended sometime so past the waking hours it was neither late or early. The moon was covered by clouds, so they could see nothing through the frosted glass of the carriage, apart from the orange glow of the lanterns in either corner atop it. The ride would have turned monotonous, if not for the bottle of wine—imported from Paris, a wedding gift from her father—and its magical abilities of turning Arthur from a man of anxious silence into a playful, slightly slurred young gent.

"I'm glad to be in here with you, Marianne," he told her, his breath sweet and warm on the side of her face, for they had splayed over the cushioned seats, leaning on each other like old muckmates. Though the wine might have been clouding her memory, she was quite sure this was the first time he had said her name. It was a poor attempt; he said it in the English way, with those peculiar R's that came from the top of the mouth rather than the bottom. Words were such blunt, awkward things on the tongues of Englishmen. Nothing flowed together, nothing sounded beautiful—apart from the words they'd stolen from the French, of course. "I've not met a woman I enjoyed the company of until you."

"Not even your mother?" she asked, even though she knew how disrespectful the words sounded as they came out. Of course she knew; she intended them to be that way.

"My mother," he echoed in a way that suggested he was unfamiliar with the concept. He took another sip of the wine, straight from the bottle. (He'd cursed the servants for neglecting to supply glasses, but Marianne had simply laughed. It was not the first time she had drank from the bottle, she assured him, and would not be the last. He seemed surprised to learn what she had known from the start: he was the snobby goose, not her.) Arthur swallowed incorrectly and gave a rather wet cough into his gloved fist, clearing his throat loudly. "Excuse me, I beg your pardon. Something went a bit mad in my, er, gullet."

She raised an eyebrow at him, because it was impossible to see in the shadow of the carriage, but didn't point out that he was stalling. She knew that he knew what he was doing. He was either the smartest idiot or the daftest genius she'd ever met.

He scratched at an invisible hair on his cheek; he kept himself cleanshaven, though she quietly preferred a man with a bit of texture to him. "My mother is quite pleasant, as ladies go," he said, pacing the words carefully. "She was like you, she came from a family of lesser status. Her marriage to my father raised her up to his—my— _our_ level."

"But I thought you were above me," she remarked, as innocently as she could.

Arthur blinked. He really could not hold his liquor. "Ah, well, yes. I am. I am the Master of our household." He glanced around the carriage interior as if he'd just now realized where he was. "Once we get there."

"I see. Oh, no, I have had enough wine. You finish it."

When they finally arrived, Arthur nearly fell down the folding steps. He righted himself with a damp sort of dignity and held out his hand to Marianne, which she accepted and—though she was tempted to hop down to the ground—made her stately way down the steps. Arthur tipped his top hat to the driver and led his bride to the front door of their home, which was nothing more than an obsidian goliath in the night. Arthur pushed the door open and lifted Marianne up for the second time of the night. He staggered like a newborn colt under her weight, and she half-expected him to topple over, but he managed to carry her over the threshold of their new home, hook the door closed with his foot, and deposit the pair of them on their newly nuptial bed.

Perhaps it was the excitement of the day lasting far too late into the night. Perhaps it was the fact that he'd drunk three quarters of a bottle of rich French wine. Perhaps it was a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, as soon as Arthur Kirkland untrussed and slipped between the sheets, he was asleep.

Marianne paused in unbraiding her hair, staring at her husband, his pale face glowing in a thin shaft of moonlight from the curtained window. He looked as innocent as a child, his lips parted in a way she knew would end up with a wet spot on the pillow. She stood, pulled the curtains fully drawn and joined her husband in the bed. _I won't be the first to sleep a virgin on my wedding night_ , she thought, wrapping her arms around the boyish body of the Englishman beside her. It was only when the black wave of slumber swept toward her that she remembered: the night the stars were so bright and close enough to touch, the little hut overlooking the coast, skin so warm against her own. . . .

_I'm not a virgin._

Her heart shivered at the secret, and she pushed the thought away as if Arthur could detect it through sleep, through the barrier of his mind and her own, and leap up and accuse her of the untruth she'd presented. Of course, no one had _asked_ if she was a virgin. Who would ever ask that? And why would they bother? It was assumed for all young ladies to be virgins. How realistic that ideal was, Marianne could not say. But her past and present were tide pools with a vast boulder between them. Only an act of otherwordly intervention could bring them together.

Still, she held her husband closer, like something precious, something she did not want to lose. She whispered, " _Bonne nuit,_ Arthur." He gave no response. She moved her lips against his mussed blond hair and whispered, " _Je t'aime,_ Arthur Kirkland." The softest moan came from him, and he settled deeper into sleep. She smiled to herself. A marriage begun in false pretenses didn't have to end in tragedy. Love would always come through in the end. When she had nothing else to believe in, she had that, and the consolation of it finally allowed her to join Arthur in a dreamless, fearless sleep.

 

**. . .**

 

The house turned out to be ten rooms, including the attic and basement. It was larger than Marianne's family home but smaller than Arthur's, and neither really seemed to know what to do with it. Neither were accustomed to needing servants; Marianne because she could live without them, Arthur because he couldn't. The house had been furnished with all the furniture and dishware they could possibly require—gifts from the Kirkland vault—but they had no one, as of yet, in their hire.

"A cook and a maid, to start," Arthur said the next morning as they took stock of their new abode, "and a scullery maid, perhaps, once we're on our feet."

The way he talked, one would think they were in hardship. Of course, they were far from it. It was a complicated business, but Marianne's understanding of it was this: Master Kirkland—she had known Arthur's father by the title for so long, it was forever jarring to hear the same name used in reference to her husband—owned several plots of land in and around England, and he taxed people for the privilege of living on it. This meant that, essentially, the Kirklands—and many other nobles, for that matter—got richer and richer without lifting a finger. The specifics of the deal that had resulted in her marriage were unknown to Marianne, and she suspected they would stay that way. She cared little about business matters; she preferred beautiful things, like art and nature. Any work she would have ended up doing would have been through her body, using it at best and selling it at worst. Of course, being a woman, it wasn't something she had to worry about. Marriage was the answer to all of life's problems, at least for some members of the fair sex. She wouldn't have minded being a farmer's wife, baking pies and pastries with fruits from the orchard, cooking meals with the vegetables and meat and eggs they raised. Then again, she did love fine clothes, and farmers' wives didn't wear anything they couldn't get muddy. It was difficult to be vain when you were reasonable. And vice versa.

"No cook," she told Arthur, firmly. "I will cook, or I will not eat."

He regarded her, face just a little pinched in irritation. "That wasn't one of your three conditions."

She shook her head. " _Non_ , but if you want to be happy, you will let me cook. Have you had French cooking before?"

"Er . . . no," he replied, in the way that she would eventually learn meant _not while sober._

"Well, I will make you breakfast, and you will tell me if we need a cook or not, _oui_?"

He paused long enough to make the decision seem like his own, then replied, "Very well, Marianne."

The pantry foiled her plans. She had been about to prepare some elaborate French meal that would have him on his knees, begging her to cook for him forever. Instead, she found the bland ingredients the English used poorly to make their bland food. Enough lard and salt to kill a bear, bags of flour, sugar, beans, lettuce, some salted pork. There was good, flat ground behind the house, and a large wooden shed; she intended to turn the former into a garden and the latter into a chicken hutch. Until she did that, and convinced Arthur to invest in more palatable foods, she would just have to make do.

With some wasted effort here and there—and some strawberry preserves she found on the topmost shelf—she created a plate of crêpes that would not have impressed anyone across the Strait, but which had Arthur making pleased noises as he chewed.

Once he'd finished, however, he looked at her expectantly and asked, "Is that all?"

In a house that was supposed to be her own, she'd forgotten that this was not France. The English valued breakfast much like the Prussians did, starting the day off bloated with ham and beef and beans. She couldn't see the appeal; the French ate their first and last meals light, spending as long as needed to dine in the middle of the day. Plenty of time to digest, plenty of time to meet with friends. A contrast to the English, who made it to the middle of the day and ate only enough to stave themselves off for dinner, where they ate so much they often fell asleep in the sitting room shortly after, their stomachs straining at the buttons of their waistcoats.

Rather reluctantly, she asked, "Do you want me to make you more?"

Arthur considered this question long enough that she wondered if he was about to make some snide remark, but instead he shook his head with a curious expression. "No, actually, I think that will be enough. Thank you, it was quite good. You shall make us a lovely cook, my dear."

She took his plate back to the kitchen, smiling from the look of slight panic in his eyes. The first term of endearment he'd likely ever said. She found herself feeling honored to be the first. _He isn't your first_. She didn't acknowledge the voice in her mind. She suspected if she didn't pay it any attention, it would go away. Like an insect bite. If you scratched it, it would only swell and itch more. If you ignored it, it would heal quicker and vanish before you even realized.

After she'd had a bit of bread and jam for her own _petit dejéuner_ , they went out to see their estate. There were no cobbles in sight here, just a dirt road that went a ways from their house before turning and vanishing into the trees. The trees, mostly fir and oak, lined the left side of the property, but the right side was clear. She had asked for meadows, and she had been given meadows. The ground sloped down, then up again, to a sort of ridge. The horses were grazing on this ridge; the fence of their pasture ran along it and down a ways—twenty strides, her future children would report—before joining up with the stable, where their carriage was stored. They had three horses, which was three more than she'd ever had in France, where she had walked everywhere and boated where she could not walk. She was eager to learn to ride, and asked Arthur if he would teach her.

"Ride? They aren't for riding. They're for pulling carriages."

"They are horses. Any horse can wear a saddle. Don't you know how to ride?"

"Of course. My father and I once rode regularly with the Hunt."

 _Poor foxes_ , she thought. "We will ride them someday. Or else we could get some that are _for_ riding."

Arthur nodded thoughtfully. "Hmm. We could do that." He was starting to loosen up, she was glad to see; he didn't stride with the stiff, measured, quick steps he'd used on the London cobbles. Both of them walked slower, feeling the grass brush against their ankles (he felt the blades vaguely through his trousers). There were some flowers out here, and he picked her a daisy, delicately tucking it into her hair. She was shocked by the tenderness of it, and took his hand. He gave her an almost pained smile—making an effort, she could tell, to surpass his stoic upbringing—and twined their fingers together.

From the ridge, they had a view of what she considered to be a real meadow: a beautiful little field full of sweet-smelling grass, surrounded by trees, birds chirping and swooping down for building materials for their nests. It was the sort of place that would look beautiful at any time; blanketed in fluffy snow, red in an autumn sunset, golden and sparkling with dew on an early spring morning.

"Oh, how lovely," she said, a bit of whimsy in her voice. "I think this will be the perfect home for us. Look at this place, it would be complete if we had just a few more things."

He glanced at her, surprised to see her so agreeable. "What things would those be?"

"Well, I would like to have a garden and some animals."

"A garden would be nice, yes. What sort of animals?"

"Oh, the usual. Chickens. Maybe a pig. And we really should have a dog."

"Yes, I was thinking we should find ourselves a guard dog."

"You can get a guard dog if you want to, but I mean a family dog. A dog we can play with, and to keep us warm at night."

He blinked. "We won't be cold at night, I assure you. But if you want a dog like that, we can get one."

Her teeth, a bit yellowed by wine, shone in a grin. She knew there was no limit to the things they could have, not with the money his family—and, now, _her_ family—had in its bottomless purse. She leaned closer to him, both of them swooning from the undeniable beauty around them: the birdsong, the knicker of horses, the clean air, the sunlight, the gentleman's beautiful eyes, the lady's beautiful smile.

"Children," she whispered. "Imagine this meadow, with our children and our dog running and playing and laughing. That is what I want."

He turned his face so their noses brushed. He looked into her eyes. Green met blue. He had never realized that what he truly wanted was a family who loved him. He had a family, after all, but having one was different than having a good one. He was the black sheep of his brothers, all of whom played sports and went hunting and could live off the land if they had to. He was the weakest, and while he enjoyed kicking a ball around and chasing a fox on the back of a horse, he could not do either of those things the way he was supposed to. He couldn't kick the ball into a goal. He couldn't bear to see the fox killed, let alone to do it himself. His father was distant, his mother was . . . well, how had he put it? _Nice, as ladies go_. She was good for entertaining guests in the parlor. She was good at gossiping. She was good at spending her husband's money and decorating the house and pushing out children. Aside from that, she was about as loving as a mossy stone. Soft and alive on the outside, but the opposite within.

But to have a family of his own? To sire children? To have a home full of people who loved him?

The thought brought tears to his eyes, so he closed them, and before Marianne could ask why, he kissed her. It was not the chaste kisses he had allowed himself to bestow while they were courting. It was all of the emotion she had stirred within him brought upward from his heart and through his lips. It was the clumsiness of his tongue, and hers mentoring his, leading by example. It was her teeth gently squeezing his lower lip. It was Marianne grabbing his sleeve and dragging him back to the house, in through to the bedroom.

" _Now_?" he asked as she unbuttoned his shirt.

"Better late than never," she replied, tugging him so sharply he just about fell on top of her as she lay back on the bed.

Fortunately, he was too concerned with his own performance—for he was a virgin, as if that wasn't obvious—to notice anything lacking in her own, namely the blood he had been told would be present. Marianne hadn't bled the first time, actually. It was . . . better if she didn't think about it. _Comparing would be cruel._ Not that Arthur was terrible in bed, especially since this was his first time. His kisses were passionate, if a bit wet, but he needed to work on his stamina. _Practise makes perfect._ Between gasps, he told her he loved her, and she smiled against his neck and replied, "I love you, too."

Afterward, they lay together, Arthur's thin arms around her, warmed by the sunlight shining through the window. She swirled her fingertips through the light dusting of hair on Arthur's chest. His skin was as soft as hers, softer in some places, like beneath his jaw. Arthur looked at her with heavily lidded eyes, such a vibrant green. Their sparkle reminded her of— _oh, stop thinking about him. Stop it!_

"Children," he murmured. "The first of . . . how many?"

She shrugged playfully. It was wonderful to imagine, a child forming inside her as they spoke, like a seed planted, to grow over the next nine months. She would fulfill _that_ goal, at least, having a child before their one-year anniversary. She imagined having three children, one for each of the unused bedrooms. _Why stop there?_ She imagined having three more beds built, doubling up the rooms, six children! A herd of them to chase their future dog, to sit around the table, to make every day be full of something new. She imagined the house's walls bowing, the windows shattering, unable to contain all the love she had for her family.

"Oh, I don't know," she replied brightly. "We will just have to wait and see what happens."

 

**. . .**

 

"OH _MON DIEU_ , HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!"

The raw-throated scream made Arthur wince. He stood in the hall outside the master bedroom, listening to the horrific sounds of his wife going through childbirth, which the door did absolutely nothing to muffle. He'd been barred, quite vocally, from the room by the midwife. _Husbands might mean well, but they do nothing but get in the way_ , she claimed. _And you won't want to see it anyway, sir, believe me._ He certainly did believe her, now; he didn't want to hear it, let alone have the accompanying visuals. He'd considered going downstairs, or even out to visit the legion of chickens, but he didn't want to seem like a—

"ARTHUR! YOU BASTARD!"

Arthur's eyes widened. He had never heard such language from a woman. It was unbecoming. And it was, well, surely that was an offense worthy of beating? He'd seen his father give his mother a back-handed smack once, at the peak of a heated argument. They had not quarreled like that ever since, so the method proved to be beneficial. Then again, it was widely known that birthing a child was a hideously painful activity. No man could deny that women had to be admired for the burden they beared, and for the ability to bear it in the first place. Having a baby? Creating life! It was a god's task, a miracle. But the process . . .

Marianne gave a final, agonized scream, barely sounding human. Arthur thought he heard a sort of splashing sound, something wet, but he couldn't really hear through her panting, everything was muddled and he stepped forward to press his ear to the door just as the purest, sweetest cry rang out. In that second, Arthur felt as though his heart had grown big enough to fill his entire body; he was a heartbeat, he was held breath, he was numb fingers turning the doorknob and seeing his wife, cheeks patchy from exertion, hair curled with sweat at her temples, and the baby in her arms, chubby and scarlet-faced, wailing relentlessly as if to make sure the world knew, _I'm here! I'm here! I'm here!_

Arthur stepped into the room on weak legs and fell to his knees beside the bed, eyes round with amazed adoration. "I . . ." What could he say? What words were adequate for this feeling? None, not in his language. So he simply kissed his wife's hot cheek and whispered to her, "I love you, my dearest," before looking down at the baby, their baby, _his_ baby, and touched the tiny pink fingers with the tip of his own. So small, so fragile, a marvel. An utter marvel.

"A girl," the midwife remarked, as if it wasn't one of the most momentous pieces of information in the world, which it absolutely was, as far as Arthur Kirkland was concerned.

His gaze hurried back to Marianne, hopeful. "Does that mean—"

She chuckled, made soft by her weariness. " _Oui_ , Arthur. We can call her Amelia."

That was their deal. Their marriage was one of endless negotiations, compromises usually made by him submitting to her adamant requests. (It wasn't that he was afraid of confrontation, or anything like that. He just preferred things to remain civil, if at all possible. Besides, he was going to inherit a lordship one day. He had to have complete control over his temper, and what better place to practise than at home?) Arthur had wanted their dog to come from a respected breeder, for instance, and Marianne had insisted they adopt the little ball of white fluff advertised as _Male Stray Mongrel Pup_. To be fair in that case, however, the puppy was absolutely adorable, and what sort of man would he be to turn away an orphan? But the baby's name had been an even deal, for once. If it was a boy, Mathieu. If it was a girl, Amelia.

Arthur embraced his wife, gentle and a bit awkward with their given positions and the fussing baby between them. Arthur and Marianne leaned their heads together, watching fondly as their daughter rooted around for a moment before at last latching on and taking her first long drink of milk.

"Welcome to the family, Amelia Kirkland," he whispered to her, running a fingertip lightly over the fuzz of her head, soft as the down of a chick. _Our little gosling,_ he thought. _A little silly goose._

The midwife, pausing in gathering the bloodied sheets and cloth, thought to herself that any baby born of people from opposite sides of a rift filled with hatred (which was arguably the case between the British and the French) might as well be cursed. It would be like cats and dogs having young, how could that ever work? It couldn't. Yes, the midwife was certain, there was something dark in the future for this baby, and any other babies this pair had. She wouldn't be here to witness it, that was certain—and indeed, when the pregnancies that followed reached their end, the midwife was absent, visiting relatives for the second and dead for the third. (She slipped and cracked her head open on rocks during a beach holiday. It could have happened to anyone. Marianne often wondered what became of their first midwife, and once remarked, "We should find her, send a card. It would be nice." And Arthur had snapped, as was his wont by then, "Since when have you concerned yourself with being nice?")

But this was long before that, before any of the people in the bedroom could comprehend those things as possibilities. Arthur and Marianne exchanged a loving kiss in the shape of each other's smiles, Amelia snuffled and suckled dutifully at her mother's breast, and the midwife took the sheets down to the maid to dispose of them and went out to the carriage that was waiting to take her back to the nearest township.


	2. Chapter 2

_**England, 1778** _

 

The starlings were black with white speckles, but when the sun hit them, a shimmery dark green ripple spread through their feathers. _The magic of nature_ , Mathieu thought, _is those colors, hidden where no one would think to look._ He was lying on his back in the sweet grass of the meadow, old Kuma dozing beside him, his creaky breaths whistling almost inaudibly as they gusted out of those black nostrils. Mathieu did this more and more as he got older, going outside to feel, to look, to listen. The last one was dangerous, because if he listened too intently his ears would pick up the endless arguments that came from the house. Amelia claimed they hadn't always fought, but, "You were just a baby back then, Mattie. You wouldn't remember." As if that wasn't a heartbreaking truth. She never seemed to care that their parents were constantly at each others' throats. Proof? She had gone on a trip to Scotland with Uncle Alistair, and she hadn't even considered what that would do to the household she left behind. To Mathieu, it was obvious what would happen. He was Mother's favorite, and Amelia was Father's favorite. What would he do without her? Get jealous, of course. Get grumpy, of course. Fight with Mother, of course. And then she would have Mathieu to comfort her, as always, but who would comfort Father? No one, now, and he would storm off to the room that had once been a nursery but was now an office where no one was welcome without Arthur's explicit permission. (Not even Lydia, the maid, was allowed in. Mathieu had never seen inside, but he suspected it could do with some tidying.) Arthur would have coals simmering in his heart until the next fight, where they would flare into more fire, then settle down to coals again, never to be put out without Amelia. Mathieu had tried before to comfort his father, but they had never been very close. Too many things drove them apart. Mathieu was fluent in English and French, while his father struggled to understand simple sentences in the latter. Mathieu loved being outdoors, for hours on end. Arthur had only joined his family for a picnic in the meadow once, and he'd ended up with a sunburnt face and hands. They had nothing in common, aside from a love of reading, but even in that they differed; Arthur didn't care for Mathieu's romances, and Mathieu had no interest in Arthur's historical encyclopedias.

But it worked the other way, too. Marianne and Amelia often clashed, over the strangest things. Clothes, mostly. The cut of a shirt. _(It's too revealing, Amelia! It's too drab, Mother!)_ The color of a coat. _(If you wore something pink, or a soft blue, you would look so lovely. If you say so, but I think I'll just keep the brown and black.)_ And the neverending, year-spanning war about the matter of trousers. _(YOU ARE A LADY AND YOU WLL NOT DRESS LIKE A MAN! I AM A RICH KIRKLAND AND I CAN WEAR WHATEVER I BLOODY WANT!)_ Arthur, for his part, mostly agreed with Marianne about Amelia's clothing, but he was far too invested in opposing his wife in every possible matter to give in on something as frivolous as household attire. At home, Amelia was free to wear what she pleased. In public, it was not open to discussion: she would wear a dress or a skirt. Were society's views different, Arthur may have relented to her preferences, but as it was, he would not budge. He would not allow his daughter to break the law.

In unison, Mathieu and Kuma heaved a sigh. He—the boy, not the dog—wished things were different, even though he knew how pointless that was. It just seemed like they were all waiting for something. They were all stuck in this same rut, held hostage by the fiery cycle of Arthur and Marianne's fights. It wasn't a war either of them could win; what would the prize be? Nothing. What were they fighting over? Being right. Mathieu had never heard of anything so daft. How could two people fight for a decade and suddenly admit that one had been right all along? Impossible.

Mathieu was the only one who noticed these things, because he watched and listened. Everyone else clamored to yell above the chatter. Everyone else waited impatiently for their chance to speak. He _listened._ If people would only _listen_. . . .

"Hello," said Peter, flopping down beside his older brother. He was twelve, but he seemed younger; he'd inherited Arthur's smallness, and he was the baby of the family, so he acted accordingly. Mathieu suspected it was a shield against the conflicts of the house. How could anyone blame Peter for anything, he was just the baby. Nothing was ever his fault. He had a toy plane in his hand, one Mathieu had helped him build with paste and thinly carved bits of wood. Peter flew his plane to land on Kuma's thickly furred flank. "Hello, Teddy."

This was another point of contention in the Kirkland home. Everyone had a different name for the dog. Amelia maintained his name should be Blizzard, after the color of his coat. Mathieu knew his name was supposed to be Kuma, because he was as big as a bear, and that word meant bear (though just how he had come upon this information none of the family could fathom). Peter, appreciating the bear concept but wanting to be a bit cuter with it, went with Teddy. Arthur and Marianne had never been able to come up with a name the other liked, and had given up some time before Mathieu's birth, so for as long as he could remember Father called him _old lad_ and Marianne referred to him as _beau chien_ , and sometimes Beau, if she needed to summon him. Somehow, the dog answered to every name, every time. When Mathieu and Peter called things like _cake!_ or _fish!_ to test him, the dog completely ignored them. Thusly, Kuma was the smartest person Mathieu had ever met, even though he was a dog.

"Mother and Father are arguing again," Peter remarked, glumly picking at the grass.

Mathieu sat up. "It's not because of us," he assured his brother. "It's just them."

"I know. It's just annoying, that's all. I wish they'd shut up. All they do is shout." Peter held his finger out to a ladybug, but it fluttered away in a flash of crimson. He turned his blue gaze, so much darker than Marianne's or Amelia's, to Mathieu. "Can I tell you a secret?"

Mathieu nodded. "Of course."

Peter leaned closer, speaking in an undertone. "I've been praying for God to send us someone to make things better. Maybe someone magic, to make Mother and Father love each other. Or maybe someone bad."

Mathieu had begun to share his brother's feeling of longing for that magic someone, but now his brow furrowed. "Someone bad? What do you mean?"

Peter shrugged, eyes on his lap. "I dunno. Maybe . . . I dunno. Maybe Mother and Father can't love each other anymore. Maybe one of them has to leave."

Mathieu quickly took Peter's hand, his violet eyes meeting the dark blue ones. "Listen to me, Peter. Mother and Father won't be like this forever, but . . . I don't know what it will take to stop it, but you shouldn't wish for someone bad to come. You shouldn't wish for bad things to happen to our parents. And what if the bad person hurt us, too?"

Peter's eyes widened a little. "I never thought about that. I'm sorry."

"It's alright. Just . . . no more praying for someone bad to come, okay? Besides, we never have any guests—"

Just as he reached the end of the S, a voice neither boy had ever heard before with the strangest accent bellowed, "THIS IS THE KIRKLAND HOUSE, _JA_? ANYBODY HOME?"

Peter scampered up the slope to peek over the top of the ridge, while Mathieu got up slower, pausing to comfort Kuma, who had jerked awake at the strange voice. "You haven't moved that fast in a while," Mathieu murmured to the old dog, before heading toward Peter. "Who is it?"

"Two men," Peter reported. "One is dark, and one is light." He turned to Mathieu in shock. "Mother is hugging the darker one!"

Mathieu looked down from the ridge. They couldn't see over the house, but the quartet of their parents and two strangers was standing on the path to the right of the house, so they were in full view while Marianne flung her arms around that odd smiling man. Mathieu had never seen her so happy.

And beside the darker stranger, hair the silver of someone twice his age, wide shoulders and tall stature leaving no question about the strength he possessed, the man who had yelled, turned his head to look directly at Mathieu. They had the full length of the pasture between them, but Mathieu still felt those eyes—the crimson of a ladybug, of blood, of a demon—piercing his very soul.

"I'm afraid," Peter whimpered under his breath.

So was Mathieu, but Marianne was beckoning them, and none of the Kirkland children actively disobeyed their parents. Mathieu descended the slope with Peter at his side and Kuma shambling as quick as he could behind them, making his way toward two men who he hoped—feared, dreaded, regretted—would change his life forever.

 

**. . .**

 

For Marianne, the past seventeen years of marriage had been very educational. She had become very aware of her limits, because Arthur spent the majority of each day prodding at them. Several nights the past month had ended with them collapsing in exhaustion beside each other, made weary by the sheer fact that they had no other words left to use as weapons against each other. Insults were inevitably recycled, which allowed for a new accusation: lack of originality. They had recently taken to critiquing each other's words of hate. Marianne found her language, so beautiful and colorful, lacking in the obnoxious insult department. It turned out the English language was perfect for swearing, and had no shortage of words based in genitalia, excreta, and copulation. For a gentleman, Arthur certainly had a filthy tongue. Some of the ways he combined curses didn't even make grammatical sense, but in his accent—so harsh when he wanted it to be—they cut deep. So, naturally, she stabbed him back. And round and round it went.

Until she heard the familiar shout from a lifetime ago, and that boulder that had seemed so firm between her past and her present was submerged in the surging waters of . . . joy. Such simple, soaring joy. She had not felt such happiness since the birth of her middle child, her favorite.

And then, through the window, she saw him. The man she had been trying to forget since the first night spent with her husband, the man who made her despise her husband because the pair of them were so different, the man to whom Arthur could never, ever hope to compare.

Marianne ran to fling open the front door. "Is it really you?"

Antonio Carriedo's olive-toned face lit up with a grin that put the impuissant English sun overhead to shame. " _Hola_ , Mari. How are— _oof!_ " This last was because she had launched herself at him. He laughed and held her close, his lips brushing her hair. "I missed you. It's been too long."

"I missed you more than anything in the world," she murmured into his chest, hoping his coat muffled the words so that he and Gilbert couldn't hear the dip of heartbreak in her voice (Gilbert couldn't, but Antonio could, and his brow furrowed slightly, but he didn't say anything about it).

She might have lingered longer in Antonio's warm, _cigarro_ -scented embrace, if not for the teasingly tartish voice asking, "What is this, you missed the Spaniard but not the Prussian? You've been spending too much time with these Englisch."

Marianne smiled and gave Gilbert a hug, as well. His body was harder than Antonio's, not that the Spaniard was weak; both of them were able-bodied. Of course they were. One could not spend months on end at sea without becoming hardy and resolute. Marianne would have gone out with them, but as a woman, it wasn't possible. Still, she knew she was more like her friends than like the blond man stepping out of the house right now.

"What's all this, then?" Arthur asked, a guarded look in his eyes after seeing two strange men put their arms around his wife.

Antonio smiled, as always. Marianne had never met anyone so friendly, aside from dogs. "We are old friends of Mari," he replied, offering a hand. "I'm Antonio Carriedo. It's an honor to meet you."

Arthur placed his pale, delicate hand into Antonio's larger, bronzed one. "Mari," he repeated flatly, almost to himself, before adding, "Arthur Kirkland," and concluding in a way that suggested he was anything but, "Charmed."

Gilbert shook Arthur's hand, as well, with the Englishman tipping his head back to gaze up the half-foot of height difference between them. Gilbert smirked, feeling the lack of strength in Arthur's thin arm. Arthur's eyes narrowed, overly aware of the fact that he was both the eldest and shortest person in attendance.

"Gilbert Beilschmidt," said Gilbert Beilschmidt. "Pleasure to make your acquaintence."

Marianne was glad to see Gilbert could still weild even kind words like a blade. _Do you see this, Arthur? This is someone you would not want to fight with._ She had never felt more rescued. Even the negative things about her husband were lackluster compared to what her friends were capable of. Antonio could kill with kindness; Gilbert could kill with . . . well, Gilbert could kill. Marianne had not witnessed it herself, but she had a stark memory of finding Gilbert washing blood off his hands. _From fish?_ she had asked, and for once he had not met her gaze. _Yeah. Fish._ And of course there were the late-night fights Gilbert had gotten himself into, roaring drunk with the other sailors, which Antonio always had to drag him away from. Marianne proved useful at those times; if she got between her boys and the others, they always backed off. No one was foolish enough to touch the captain's daughter. No one except. . . .

"So you _do_ have little ones," Gilbert remarked, and Marianne followed his reddish gaze up the slope to where her sons were watching from the ridge. She beamed, proud of her children even if Peter did look more like his father than his mother. She waved them over, and put her arms around their shoulders.

"This is Peter, the youngest," she told them. The boy peered shyly upward, and her friends nodded kindly to him, Gilbert amused by how intimidated the Peter was. "And this is Mathieu. He was born in the middle. Amelia is our eldest and only daughter, but she is away, visiting her uncle."

Mathieu was trying hard not to stare at Gilbert, Marianne could tell. She knew why; the Prussian was quite peculiar in appearance, what with his ashen hair and blood-shaded irises. He could be quite terrifying when he wanted to be, but any loved one of Marianne had no need to fear him. She was family, and so was her son. To both children, Gilbert said, " _Guten Tag_."

" _Bonjour_ ," Mathieu replied, voice soft as always when speaking in front of many people. Marianne wasn't sure what caused this. In private conversation, Mathieu spoke up for himself, but among others—even when the others were family—he became shy, hushed, difficult to notice. It was even more puzzling because the other members of the household were not what anyone would call _quiet_. She supposed there was always an odd one out. _He got that from his father, without a doubt._

Gilbert's lip curled at the French greeting, and Antonio said, "You definitely take after your mother," which made Mathieu give a tiny smile and made Arthur clear his throat pointedly. Everyone turned their attention to the Englishman.

"Forgive me for interrupting the . . . reunion," said Arthur haughtily, "but I think it would be more appropriate to have it indoors. Also, you neglected to do it, dear, so I shall take it upon myself to invite Mr. Carriedo and Mr. Beil, er, Beilschmidt to stay for dinner."

Antonio raised his eyebrows at Marianne, _Is he always like this?_ She simply stifled a sigh. _Oui._

Gilbert's smirk sharpened enough to draw blood. "Oh, don't worry about invitations, where we're from we don't need to act out pompous rituals to feel comfortable around each other. And, hey, we're all friends here, aren't we?" He chuckled, teeth flashing just a little between his lips. " _Also_ , we don't mind the outdoors. Better to be out in the air, especially in these parts. Things can get pretty stuffy. I hope you understand my meaning. English isn't my first language. But I suspect you're clever enough to read between the lines, _ja_?"

Arthur's left eye twitched slightly. Red and green gazes clashed until Arthur finally turned his back on them, striding through the ajar front door. "I shall be in my office if I should be needed. Please do not disturb me. I have letters to read." From within the house, they all heard the office door shut—not a slam, but close enough that Kuma gave a whine of concern.

Normally, Mathieu would have stroked the dog's soft white ears to comfort him, but now he stood motionless as his mother escorted her friends and Peter into the house. Antonio had made Marianne smile, and Gilbert had made Arthur retreat from battle. Both of those things were unprecedented as far as Mathieu was concerned. These two exotic men were miracle workers.

"Hey, Mäuschen."

Mathieu startled out of his amazed reverie. Gilbert had stopped walking to glance over his shoulder at him, smirk softer now, a smile that didn't suggest the viewer was lesser, more that the owner of the smile was better. It was at once complicated and simple, and it made something flip over in Mathieu's stomach.

Gilbert arched a pale eyebrow. "Coming?"

Mathieu nodded hastily. "Yes! I just, uh . . ." He wanted to give some lie about needing to feed the chickens or the horses or the goat first, but he had a feeling the Prussian knew farm animals didn't randomly get fed in the middle of the day. The truth was, he wasn't the type of person to make friends easily. He didn't put himself out there. Amelia did that. Marianne was never shy. Arthur had his posh manners to hide behind. Peter was shy at first, but once he grew accustomed to whomever he was speaking to, it was nearly impossible to shut him up. But Mathieu didn't do that.

And yet . . . for the first time . . . he wanted to.

"Yes," he said again, with more certainty this time.

Gilbert's smile didn't change, but his eyes—the red that had moments ago seemed so chilling now glittered warmly, like a pair of rubies. The Prussian gestured to the doorway. "Kirklands first."

Mathieu stepped inside, and though he didn't glance back, he knew Gilbert was watching him. The idea was exciting. _What might he want with me?_ It would be nice to have a friend who seemed so interesting. He hoped the visiting friends would bless the family with their presence for a long while.

 

**. . .**

 

"So where have you two been all this time?" Marianne asked, once they had settled in the parlor with wine for the adults, milk for the children, and beer for Gilbert ( _oh, great, I love English beer, it's good for sobering up_ ).

Antonio and Gilbert exchanged a glance, the sort that used to drive Marianne mad with jealousy because, to her and all those watching, the meaning was indecipherable. Years ago, Marianne had thought the issue was simply her lack of, well, being a man. But now she suspected it was because Antonio and Gilbert were both older than her (Antonio was thirty-seven and Gilbert was thirty-eight, while Marianne trailed behind at thirty-four) and they had spent their earlier years together. The trio was quite close, but the boys knew each others' souls.

 _Not boys, anymore_ , she thought with jarring wonder and a little flicker of excitement. _They're men now._

"Oh . . ." Antonio trailed off, thoughtful, and Gilbert finished for him, "We've been around. Sailing this sea and that, you know how it goes."

Peter perked up with interest at mention of sailing, but children were supposed to be seen, not heard, so he could say nothing unless spoken to. Beside him, at fifteen, Mathieu was in the grey area between man and child; old enough to make it on his own, most likely, but still young enough to fearfully respect his elders, a quality that seemed to fade when true adulthood took hold.

"Sailing the seas," she echoed, suddenly realizing what that look could mean. "Flying what colors?"

Antonio's cheeks seemed to get a bit darker, and Gilbert glanced pointedly in the direction of Arthur's office before replying, "No colors in particular."

Peter's face didn't change, but Mathieu's brow furrowed slightly in confusion. Marianne wondered what her husband would do if he knew his wife was entertaining two pirates in his parlor. She decided she didn't particularly care. What Arthur didn't know wouldn't kill him. She deserved to have a break from the constant warring. This was her holiday. This visit would have been the perfect Christmas gift—not that Arthur didn't get her plenty of things, gowns and jewels. They were clearly picked out by his mother, however, and were all in English style or otherwise unsuited to Marianne. She rarely wore any of her finery. Their trips into town didn't require fancy attire, and they only made it to London perhaps once or twice in a year. She did miss the scent of the sea and the lights of Paris, but neither of those things could be found in London, so she considered a few trips in the year to be a few too many. (The children agreed, except Peter, whom their grandmother adored and always lavished with toys and sweets.)

"We didn't know you were gone until a year after you'd left France," Antonio was saying. "We came back to find you and you weren't there to find." He gave her a rueful, apologetic smile. "We would have visited then, but things were . . . Well, we had business to settle."

Gilbert nodded. "Let's just say it took longer than expected, but we're here now."

Marianne didn't think she wanted to know what business they meant, something that took sixteen years to handle. She just smiled at them, letting them see how very, very glad she was. "Yes, you're here now. How long will you stay?"

Gilbert shrugged, and Antonio asked, with uncharacteristic bashfulness, "How long are we welcome?"

 _Forever!_ "As long as you want. We have room for you, with Amelia away. The boys can share a room, and one of you can sleep in the attic, or we can move the maid up there." She didn't particularly care for their maid. Lydia was middle-aged and had two sons, both of whom were serving England across the Atlantic, shooting at American Patriots who preferred coffee to tea. She was adamant in her belief that England was the best country God had ever created, and though she had never said it, her thoughts of France and French people were less than complimentary. But she kept the house tidy and wasn't fussy about wages, so Arthur turned a deaf ear to the sidelong insults to his wife's heritage. It made Marianne wish for Maggie who spoke French ( _gone from the mansion_ , Arthur informed her, _mad from a mercury cure_ ).

"We'll try to impose as little as possible," Antonio said.

"Which means I'll be sleeping in the attic," Gilbert translated, and chugged his glass of beer. He paused, then shook his head. "Not even the tiniest belch from this stuff. They call this beer? A baby could drink it."

Peter and Mathieu exchanged an excited look, both for the wonder of having these two men stay with them, and how foreign it was for a man to take _pride_ in eructation. _It is obnoxious and foul,_ was what Arthur had always told them. _Do your utmost to refrain from it, and if you do it accidentally, give your sincerest apology and beg the pardon of those around you, particularly if they are ladies._ Neither Peter nor Mathieu had ever done it or heard it done by someone else, and as with all things taboo, they were filled with curiosity for it.

"You're sure your husband will have no problem with it?" Antonio asked. Mathieu had always thought Spaniards were confident and passionate, like the French; both loved roses, but the Spanish were the thorns and the French were the petals, in Mathieu's mind.

"Oh—well, there he is, let's ask him." Marianne stood up as her husband appeared in the doorway of the parlor. "Arthur, Antonio and Gilbert are . . ." She trailed off, stepping toward him. "Arthur, what is wrong?"

The Englishman's face was paler than she had ever seen it, and his eyes—always so sharp and bright—were unfocused and dark. He tried to speak twice before he finally managed, "Can either of you drive a carriage?"

A query directed at Gilbert and Antonio, both of whom nodded. Concerned, Antonio asked, "Is everything alright, Señor Kirkland?"

Arthur shook his head slowly. "No, I'm afraid it isn't. According to a letter that was sent yesterday, my father is dying. I need to get to London as quickly as possible. Will you take me?"

Marianne and Gilbert—and Mathieu and Peter—looked to Antonio, but he didn't hesitate as he stood and replied, "Yes, of course I will. My condolences . . ." He squeezed past Arthur and hurried out to prepare the carriage, leaving Arthur to tell those left in the parlor, "I shall send for you when the arrangements have been made. You will all be expected to attend the funeral." He gave Marianne a light peck on the cheek. "Farewell." And with that, he left the house.

No one questioned why Arthur could not drive the carriage himself, partly because of the shocking news, and partly because it was quite apparent by the look in his eyes, the kiss to his wife, the inclusion of Gilbert in the funeral attendance, and the trembling of his petite frame that he was in no state to control a vehicle—and indeed, not five minutes after he had joined Antonio in the driving seat, the Spaniard had to stop the horses and carry the swooning Englishman around to put him inside the carriage, where he lay, fainted, on the cushioned seats all the long way to London's Golden Square.

. . .

That night, Mathieu showed Gilbert to his room in the attic, where the Prussian promptly knocked his head against the slanted ceiling and remarked, " _Fotze_."

Mathieu blinked. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing nice." Gilbert sat down on the bed—it was more of a cot than anything, so his knees were higher than the mattress when he sat, and his ankles would hang over the end when he slept—and regarded Mathieu with faint amusement. "Nothing good boys like you should be saying. Thank you for showing me to my room, by the way."

It had been an order from Mother, but still, it was nice to be appreciated. "You're welcome."

They stood and sat in silence for a moment, before Gilbert said, "Shame about your grandfather."

Mathieu nodded. "Well, I didn't really know him. I've only spoken to him a handful of times. I didn't even know he was ill." He shrugged, looking down at the floor. "We're not a really . . . close family, I guess."

He blushed a bit and ducked his head more to hide it. _What am I doing, telling him about Kirkland problems? Are they really his business, even if he is Mother's friend? And why would he care, anyway?_

To his surprise, Gilbert replied with ease, " _Ja_ , that's nobles for you. The only things they care about are gold, looking-glasses, and themselves." He kicked off one of his boots; Mathieu looked up at the thump and watched him deftly unlace the other and send it crashing into its twin. "No offense to your father or the Kirklands." He lay back on the cot, arms crossed behind his head. "But it's true."

Mathieu was taken aback by how brazen the silver-haired man was, but at the same time, he admired it. What must it be like, to live without all the behavioural restrictions society imposed on so-called civilized folk? He said, "I know it's true. It's—it's nice to meet someone else who notices things."

Gilbert regarded him keenly. "Hm. It's one thing to notice things. Plenty of people do that. You just don't realize because most people are afraid to speak their minds."

Mathieu shook his head. "What's the use of having a mind if you can't tell people what's in it?"

Now Gilbert's eyebrows lifted. "How old did you say you were?"

"I didn't, yet. I'm fifteen."

Gilbert gave an impressed little hum. "You're a lot smarter than I was at fifteen, that's for sure. You're a clever one, aren't you?"

Mathieu shrugged, stifling his smile, trying not to tremble with the force of his heart swelling in his chest. "I'm good at reading and sums."

The Prussian's red eyes rolled. "Not _that_ kind of clever. Don't be modest. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? You do, come on, now."

He did. He let his smile show. He had never boasted before—it was rude, putting yourself above others—but it occured to him now that this wasn't boasting, it was simply stating facts. "I'm good at noticing things. I'm an excellent listener."

Gilbert nodded, lips quirked upward in the corners. "That's what I thought. So tell me something, listener. What has your father been doing to your mother? She looks like she's been through hell." His mouth and his eyes, Mathieu was quickly learning, had to be watched separately. The hint of a smile lingered on his thin lips, but his eyes glittered with loathing for Arthur Kirkland.

So Mathieu told him. He told Gilbert what had been happening in their home for the past decade. He told of the endless fights, the arguments, the hurled insults, the scathing mockeries, the glares at the dinner table, the touches that edged toward violence. Had Arthur hit Marianne? No, never, Mathieu felt certain of that. But he had grabbed her wrist tightly several times, tight enough that on one occasion Peter found bruises there the next day. Had they ever loved each other? Apparently, but Mathieu saw no proof of it. Had they ever tried to spend time apart? Of course not. If they were commoners, that would be possible, but everyone knew who Arthur was, and who his family was by extension. There was nowhere for any of them to hide; nowhere that could be easily returned from, in any case. In that sense, they were trapped by their own blood. They were trapped by being Kirklands. They were trapped by Arthur.

"Sometimes I hate him," Mathieu whispered, barely audible. For some reason, his throat was burning. Was that because he was going against one of God's rules? _Honor thy father._ But what about when your father was terrible to live with? When he made the family home a war zone?

Before he could do anything to stop them, tears streamed down his cheeks.

"Hey, don't cry, Mäuschen," Gilbert said, voice softer than Mathieu had heard so far. The Prussian sat up, reached out, and gently pulled Mathieu to sit beside him on the cot. Mathieu knew he was too old for this, and the embarrassment made it worse. He buried his face in Gilbert's shirt, sobbing silently, shaking against the older man's firm chest. The arms around him were strong and warm. The man smelled vaguely of brine, and of beer, and of the chicken they'd eaten for dinner. Mostly he just smelled like a man, without the frilly perfume even Amelia was fond of, without the starched stiffness of Arthur's sort, afraid to break a sweat and risk seeming human. Gilbert was real, solid, an anchoring force, a savior to cling to in this roiling sea of changes.

"I'm sorry," Mathieu whimpered, for it was all he could think to say.

Gilbert rubbed a slow, comforting circle over the boy's back, like a mother soothing her child. "There's plenty to be sorry for," he said, "but none of it is your fault. Never apologize for other peoples' mistakes."

Just what he had been telling Peter for so long. Mathieu hadn't realized that taking the burden of blame off his little brother's shoulders had meant putting it on his own. But this, hearing an adult say it was not his fault . . . Fresh tears brimmed in his eyes, but as he lifted his head to gaze up at Gilbert, the warmth in the Prussian's gaze seemed to dry up the watering sadness.

"Don't worry," Gilbert murmured, giving him a little squeeze. "It'll all work out. Antonio and I will help Marianne. You just keep noticing and listening. Keep being clever, and you'll come out on top in the end, I promise you."

Mathieu sniffled and tried his best at teasing suspicion. It was a pitiful attempt with his cheeks still damp. "D-don't make promises you can't keep."

The Prussian's teeth, startlingly white for a beer-loving sailor, flashed in a grin. "Don't doubt me. I always keep my promises. I'm a man of my word." Then, without warning, he let go of the boy and flopped back on his cot. "And I'm ready to sleep. Get out of my room."

Mathieu hurried to obey, and when he heard the Prussian mumble, "Good night, Mathieu," his chest nearly burned his shirt from the warmth of his heart. He replied softly, "Good night, Gilbert," and hurried off to his bedroom before either of them could ponder what it meant for him to call an older man by his first name, in the manner of a friend . . . or of something more.


	3. Chapter 3

_**England, 1778** _

 

Funerals were ghastly affairs, as far as Arthur was concerned. The very idea of a public ceremony of grief seemed oxymoronic. What was more private than one's feeling of loss? Those who spoke at a funeral had to be careful not to let their emotions overwhelm them. A woman couldn't be blamed for becoming teary-eyed, but a man was expected to have only a solemn tone of voice, nothing beyond that. Thusly, Arthur declined the responsibility of giving his father's eulogy, instead letting a fellow nobleman do it. They had known each other longer than Arthur had known his father, so at least it made sense. Still, Arthur felt ashamed that he was sitting between his wife and his mother while another man spoke so fondly and respectfully of his deceased father. His mother dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and—seated on her other side—Owen took her free hand in his, a gesture of support. He was the youngest son; there were three other brothers between him and Arthur, but they were all abroad, too far to reach the news of the funeral in a timely manner. The last thing Arthur wanted to do was postpone the terrible thing just for his brothers' sake. Besides, two of them had decided to get drafted, and had been shipped off to America. Arthur couldn't bear to think of the lives being wasted across the ocean. He wished Amelia was here, but if she was, Alistair would be too, and Arthur did not want to see Alistair.

 _I wish things were simple_ , he caught himself thinking. _Life was easy once, where has that gone?_

Nothing would be simple now. His worries would be multiplied tenfold. He was a lord, now. _Lord Arthur Kirkland._ People would address him as _sir_. The maids and the butler of the mansion would call him _milord._ He would be in charge of whether other people had homes or not. What if people couldn't afford to pay the taxes he charged? And what if he was called to give an important opinion on a serious matter? What if he was the difference between a criminal being gaoled or hanged? What if . . . ?

Marianne gave him a smile. It was forced, as all of her smiles toward him were these days, but there was some genuine sympathy in her eyes. She wasn't cold enough to shrug off the death of her father-in-law, or, at least, not cold enough to pretend it didn't hurt Arthur. This was the first (and last, as it would end up being) time he had seen her in black. The mourning gown brought out the golden waves of her hair, the sky-blue of her irises, the deep pink of her lips. She was still beautiful, that was the most bothersome part of it. He loved her—of course he did, she was his wife—but it would be so much easier to hate her if she was ugly.

He couldn't recall what had started their feud. Some petty disagreement, he suspected. An argument that was dropped one day and just had to be brought up again the next. Friction turned to bitterness, they began to fight over the fact that they were still fighting, a self-fulfilling prophecy. One thing was certain—he was absolutely not in the wrong. The woman didn't care about anything that mattered; she was forever accusing him of blowing things out of proportion. Their priorities were always at opposition. They hadn't shared a kiss or a loving touch in months. They hadn't made love since Peter was conceived, and even that was a travesty. (He'd breathed wine fumes over her neck. _Would you like to have another child, my dearest?_ She'd just sighed and turned her face away. _Just get it over with._ ) People claimed that the French were the most romantic of any nationality. Well, Arthur had proof that was not the case, and her name was Marianne.

After the burial and the endless Englishmen and ladies floating over to give their condolences, Arthur was approached by his fellow nobles—members of parliament, men who sat in the House of Lords, men who had just enough power over the country to make nearby flowers wilt slightly—who said nothing, but they didn't need to. Their dark, stately, imperious gazes were all he needed to know: the time had come. Arthur turned to his family, this haphazard gathering of a French woman, Spanish and Prussian men, and two of his children, none of whom looked affected by this turn of events. Arthur wondered if they—or anyone, for that matter—would care if he were to die. They would go to his funeral, of course. _Wouldn't they?_

"I've work to do," he told them. "Matters to attend. You shall have to return home without me until we can find a home for ourselves in London."

Marianne's eyes blazed, and a despicable, dreadful fury rose in Arthur. _Not here, you stupid woman. Of all places to challenge me, not here. Do not dare._ She seemed to sense this in him, because her voice was soft as she replied, "We will talk about it later. But we will go home. Not to the mansion."

He would not make the other lords wait. He gave her a sharp nod, a look of disapproval made impressive by his thick eyebrows, and did his best to snuff the flames inside him as he joined his pack of aristocrats.

Watching them go, Marianne could barely tell one from the other, and it did not surprise her in the least that her husband blended in with them almost instantly, set apart only by his small size and golden hair. Walking with them, he took on their posture: shoulders back, stiff-legged, nose in the air. He became the man she had been forced to court so long ago, but somehow worse. He wasn't at all like a member of her family. _But he never was,_ she thought to herself, taking Mathieu's hand in her left and Peter's in her right. _We were never alike. We could never have come together. Fire and water, that's what we are._

When a carriage passed by suddenly, splashing muddy water from a hole in the cobbles, it was Antonio who stepped in front to save her from the splash. She smiled generously at him. "Thank you, Toni, but this dress couldn't get any worse."

Antonio shrugged in his good-natured way, smiling back at her. This had happened before, and now that he was back, it was happening again: they would catch each other's eye and be unable to look away. The Spaniard's eyes were such a different green than Arthur's, infinitely softer, and almost a bit hazel, as if through his impeccable breeding Arthur had managed to get perfect emeralds of eyes and Antonio's had flaws, imperfections. _Who would ever prefer perfection over something unique?_

"I would have done the chivalrous guard against mud, too," Gilbert remarked to Mathieu, "but I thought it would be best to let him do it, since he's already brown."

No one knew why Arthur Kirkland's family were vulgar enough to laugh outside of a funeral home, but no amount of pointed frowns in their direction could interrupt their merriment, and when the group left London—with Gilbert goading the horses into a gait that bounced the carriage along the somber streets—there was not a single Briton who didn't feel the tiniest sense of relief.

 

**. . .**

 

When they finally got home, Mathieu took Gilbert on a tour of the estate, showing him the little details of their world, from the shaded patch of grass that always grew little brown mushrooms (Arthur said it was a place for fairies to dance, an oddly fanciful notion on his part), to the trail they had made into the woods that led to a fallen log. The tree had been massive; it was as wide across as Gilbert's shoulders. It had been rough when they first found it months ago, but they had picked off the harder outer bark to reveal the pale inner wood, like skin off a bone. Gilbert and Mathieu sat down together on the log, a few inches of space between them. Mathieu had never been so aware of the air around himself. Gilbert didn't seem bothered by it at all, or aware of anything between them. Naturally, because there wasn't anything between them. Mathieu was just being silly, he knew. _I'm just looking for a father,_ he told himself. _I lost my grandfather and I don't know my father as well as most do. I'm just trying to solve that problem with Gilbert._ It seemed a bit selfish, using someone like this. Mathieu would have left him alone, if not for two things: one, Gilbert had held him while he cried, and two, Gilbert was the funniest person Mathieu had ever met.

_Why is your hair so grey?_

_I saw a spirit._

_Really?_

_No, I just dreamed I did one night._

_A dream changed your hair?_

_No, when I woke up from the dream, I saw myself in a looking-glass._

_And why did that make your hair grey?_

_If you saw what I look like before dawn, you would lose your color, too._

Currently, he was telling a story about his last visit—years ago, before Mathieu was born—to the fine country of England.

". . . So of course I fought the idiot. He was twice as drunk as I was, and he seemed to think I wouldn't stand a chance against him because I have, as he called it, _sodomish hair_." For the last two words, he put on an incredibly nasal and exaggerated West End accent, making Mathieu cover his mouth to stifle his giggles. Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Oh _ja_ , Englishmen are very polite, especially when they're full of their watery beer. Anyway, I fought him, put him down, and I would have fought his friend, too, if Antonio didn't think it was time to leave. He's an old woman, always ruining the fun. He knows I could take down a whole—what do you call them, pubs? I could take a whole mob of Englisch if I wanted to, sober or otherwise."

Mathieu believed him. The Prussian was louder than life; he seemed downright alien compared to the people Mathieu had grown up with. "That's a pretty rude thing to call someone, even if it is just their hair. You must have come across a bad group of people. I've only heard it once, and it was my uncle Alistair saying it. Grandmother got angry at him for it."

Gilbert nodded. "Unsurprising. Do you know what it means?"

"Well . . ." Mathieu had to shake his head. "Not exactly. I guess . . . it's a word for when men . . ." He couldn't help but blush, trying to think of a chaste way to phrase it. "Men who . . . take other men into their bedrooms."

Gilbert watched him with an intensity he hadn't had a moment ago. "That's right. Do you know any men like that?"

"No! Of course not. It's illegal. And—sinful."

A weariness entered the Prussian's eyes, and he simply repeated dully, "That's right."

The conversation lulled into silence. Rather hesitant, Mathieu asked, "Do _you_ know any, er, sodomites?" He said the word tentatively; it had never passed his tongue before. It tasted like soot. He didn't plan to say it ever again (and, as a matter of fact, he never did).

Gilbert stretched his legs out in front of him. Not avoiding the boy's gaze, but not making an effort to meet it, either. "Yes, I do."

This man just got more and more exotic. Next he would be saying he knew pirates! "Where do they live? Aren't they afraid of getting found out?"

"Kid." Gilbert's eyes had darkened. His humor had run out. "I thought you were clever."

Inwardly, Mathieu bristled at being called a child. He was fifteen, what fifteen-year-old was still called _kid_? How condescending. But he didn't say that. He just narrowed his eyes slightly. Gilbert wanted him to think before he spoke, so he would. The way the Prussian spoke, _some_ thing was obvious. But what. . . .

His eyes widened, lips parted, in realization. "Oh."

Gilbert crossed his arms over his chest, giving Mathieu a sidelong glare. This posturing was not from anger, however; it was simply a raising of hackles, a baring of teeth, a defensive display to a potential threat. Something about it made the man seem heartbreakingly vulnerable; it made him seem so much younger than he was. Mathieu, laying a gentle hand on the man's sleeve, had the sense that their ages were swapped. For a moment, the roles of wise elder and self-conscious youth were traded.

Red eyes met violet. A young aura, an old soul. Though neither noticed, the birdsong around them fell silent.

"Your secret," Mathieu whispered, "is safe with me."

For what seemed like an eternity, Gilbert remained motionless. Then, suddenly, his strong hands were cupping Mathieu's face, calloused fingers gently framing the boy's soft cheeks. Gilbert's gaze searched Mathieu's face so fiercely his breath caught in his throat. He had never felt such deep longing before, such a thrilling excitement in his chest, like a jar full of butterflies, iridescent wings flapping to a cascading overflow. His fate stood on a cliff edge, ready to tip over to the terrible, terrific, terrifying unknown. If only— _if only. . . ._

Gilbert abruptly stood up. The loss of his touch was like the coldest winter, so chilling it felt hot. He kept his back to Mathieu as he muttered, "I'm thirty-eight, and you're fifteen. Think about that, before you let me . . . do anything. You're the clever one, Mäuschen. Don't let me ruin your life."

And with that, he walked away, leaving Mathieu to droop in his absence, his spine seeing no reason to hold himself upright. He had thought Gilbert and Antonio had come to solve the Kirklands' problems, but now was the first time he considered how easily it would be for them to make more. After all, the Kirkland home was a bed of warm coals; all it would take was the tiniest breeze to send the whole thing up in flames.

 

**. . .**

 

Inside the house, Antonio and Marianne shared a glass of wine in the kitchen. This had become the one place she felt comfortable under Arthur Kirkland's roof. It was her domain, hers alone. Only the maid and, occasionally, one of the children—but never more than one at a time, for some reason—entered into her territory. Not once in their united seventeen years had Arthur once step foot in the kitchen. Even when they were fighting, Marianne gave him no reason to come in; if he wanted wine or a snack from the pantry, she insisted on getting it. It was her private space, just as his office was his space. Two forces could not be at war without a base of operations. He needed a place to think; she needed a place to cry.

"So," Antonio said. "Marriage."

"Marriage," she agreed grimly, tipping back her glass. She'd considered turning to drink a few times in the past, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, not with children. All of her possible methods of escape—the drink, a blade, fleeing into the night—were thwarted by the children. She could not leave them behind. People compared marriage to shackles, but the true chains were those that connected parents to their children. Bound by blood. _And love_ , she added mentally. _Always love._

"I can't let him treat you like this." He looked, as he so often did, helpless to the passion inside him. No man was led by their heart more than Antonio Carriedo.

Marianne felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. "It is his right. He is a man, he can do what he wants." Her voice hardened, but it was brittle, and cracked. "He is the master."

Antonio's thumb brushed her chin. "You are not a slave. You deserve to be treated like a—"

"A princess?" she asked, a scornful smile on her lips, made half-hearted by the sorrow in her eyes.

He shook his head, voice lowering until it rasped in his chest, reminding her again that he was a man, a sensually handsome man whose gaze bathed her in the awed admiration of the devoted worshipper to . . . "A goddess."

She closed her eyes. Not since that night nineteen years previously, when the Spanish sailor finally found the courage (or the stupidity) to take the French captain's daughter to a small seaside shack and lose himself in the waves of her hair, had she felt such a force inside her. She trembled with it. Want and need, nostalgia and desire.

"I can't," she whispered, because even if it wasn't true, it had to be said. The truth, or a version of it, was that she _shouldn't._ Adultery was a sin. She didn't know how it was punished in England. Was it against the law? She didn't think so. But it might as well have been. Especially for a woman. A lady, overcome by erotic cravings? Unthinkable.

Antonio breathed a long sigh against her hair. "Do you remember what you said, that morning, before I left?"

She could see him, in the black space behind her eyelids, still a bit gangly for nineteen, his hair unkempt as always, backlit in the bleak morning light. There was the most terrible storm that night, the sky mirroring her anguish at being abandoned, punishing all sailors for the crime of one, pelting the world with rain and wind. She prayed that Antonio and Gilbert would make it through safely. (They had, obviously, but she had no way of knowing. She'd learned long ago that it was best to accustom herself to the possible death of any of the sailors she knew. They could go at any time, and it hurt more when it was allowed to shock.)

" _Oui_ ," she replied under her breath. "I told you to take me with you."

The Spaniard's hand warmed the small of her back. The regret in his words was pungent, like gunmetal. "I should have listened."

She wrapped her arms around him, and he kissed the tears from her cheeks.

She said, "We cannot do this where the children can see."

An emphatic nod.

"And Gilbert can't know, either. Not yet. It must be our secret."

Antonio looked a bit reluctant to hide something this important from his comrade, but he nodded again.

"Good, then," Marianne said shortly, stepping out of his embrace to refill their glasses with wine. _Mon Dieu, I sound like Arthur._ He had a way of ending even the most heartfelt conversation—not that they had a surplus of those—with a _right, jolly good, thank you indeed_ as if he was about to shake hands with someone over a successful business meeting. It made everything he said before seem artificial. "He did love me once," she heard herself murmur. "Maybe he still does. But I don't belong with him."

"He does a poor job of loving you," Antonio remarked, then quickly sipped some wine as if that would absolve him from speaking out against the owner of the home in which he was staying. For a pirate, he had exquisite manners. When he was sober.

Marianne looked up at him, both of them hearing the unsaid: _I would do better._

"Come to my bedroom tonight," she said.

The fear and power and anticipation she felt was reflected in his eyes, and they both smiled as he replied, " _Sí, Señora._ "

She shook her head. "Tonight, I am a _señorita_ again."

And Antonio's face lit up with such affectionate delight at hearing his language on her tongue that she didn't even feel guilty about how easy it was, pretending she wasn't married to His Lordship Arthur Kirkland.

 

**. . .**

 

And so it went, over the following week.

They shared meals together, with green eyes meeting blue, and red eyes meeting violet. It was the first time in the collective memory that dinner was punctuated with bouts of laughter, and anyone—children included—was welcome to speak their mind. Even when Peter told an excruciatingly long-winded tale that had lost all humor by the end, everyone still smiled, for the atmosphere was welcoming and open. There were no disapproving eyebrows at the head of the table. No one felt the need to conform or compete or present themselves in a certain way. It, at last, felt like home.

Through the days, it felt much the same. Gilbert and Antonio shared (family-friendly) sailing stories, and taught Peter how to tie knots like a sailor would. The boy quickly became devoted to the pair of them, following them around and trying to imitate their accents (he was terrible at both, and Gilbert told him as much, though in a kind way, with a chuck under the chin that made Peter giggle).

Mathieu had few private interactions with Antonio, but the man was so kind and warm that Mathieu quickly had the sense that they had known each other longer than they had. The Spaniard had initiated several conversations about the romances Mathieu was reading, speaking with friendly interest even though the boy suspected correctly that Antonio had never read a book in his life. It was refreshing to meet someone who was polite not as a ruse to get anything or because of obligation, but just to make a friend.

As far as private interactions with Gilbert went, Mathieu wasn't sure where they stood. One day they were as close as father and son, taking long walks through the wooded areas around the property, sometimes speaking companionably about things other people would never have thought to remark upon, and other times just enjoying nature and the other's company in silence. And then, the next day, they would be distant. As far as he could tell, it was nothing Mathieu was doing. Actually, he had begun to notice a pattern. After one of their long happy days, if Gilbert stared at Mathieu in that intense, almost hungry way, then the next day he would always seem to be busy when Mathieu wanted to speak with him. They had not spoken of the exchange on the fallen log, but Mathieu had never stopped thinking about it. As with most things that required coming to terms with, he went through stages. At first, he scorned the idea of the attraction. _Just loneliness, longing for connection in any way. Just missing Father. Just wishing Gilbert was my father. But I'm not a sinner. I could never be that._ But when he couldn't force the feelings inside him into a safe, acceptable excuse, he became cross about the whole thing. _Why would I want that? Men can't have children, I wouldn't get to have a family! That isn't fair! Why is Gilbert doing this to me? What is wrong with me?!_

He would have taken far longer to come to the final acceptance of it, but a conversation with his mother expediated the process significantly. He couldn't come right out and ask about sodomy—she'd probably faint, he thought, which just showed how Arthur's ideas of women had passed on to his male children—but he could do it in a roundabout way. Amelia was the loud, direct one of the family, after all. Mathieu was the quiet, clever one. So he went to Marianne and asked, "Maman?"

She turned to him from the pastries she was dusting with sugar, smiling fondly. " _Oui_?"

Peter was out with Gilbert and Antonio, chasing back and forth between them while they played catch with a ball, so no one would be eavesdropping, but Mathieu still spoke in a bit of an undertone. He also spoke in French, something he and his mother did only when Arthur was out of earshot, because it made him angry that he couldn't understand them, especially if he heard his name poke out of their strings of nonsensical sounds.

He considered which question to start with. "Do you think I'm handsome?"

She laughed, touching his cheek with sweet-smelling fingers. "Of course. You are the most handsome boy I've ever seen."

He smiled up at her—he was still a few inches shorter—and asked, "But am I handsome, or . . . pretty?"

Her brow furrowed, and she turned back to her pastries. Her response came after a fair amount of consideration. "Well. You are both."

So even his mother admitted that he was pretty. What man wanted to be called pretty? Pretty was what women were supposed to be. So what she was telling him was what he had already thought: he was a man-woman, a pretty creature who looked like a mixture of the fair and strong sexes.

"You are special," his mother went on. "You and Amelia are both unique. She is a handsome girl, and you are a pretty boy. I have always thought this. It is what makes you different from everyone else. Why would you want to be the same?"

Mathieu was heartened by this, but he had to say it: "Father would want us to be the same."

Marianne's shoulders stiffened, and she dropped her spoon into the basin with a sharp clang. "Arthur is not like any of us. He is different."

Mathieu marvelled at how his mother's tone could change from loving to bitter so fast. Hesitantly, he asked, in English, "Is Father pretty?"

She turned around again to face him, her expression too complicated to read. She crossed her arms over her stomach as if protecting herself from something, though Mathieu couldn't imagine what. "He is . . . effete," she said. "So you probably get it from him, if that is what you are asking."

That opened up a whole other field of questions, but he was too afraid to even consider them in his head, let alone think of ways to ask his mother about them. He posed one last question: "Would you ever stop loving me?"

Her face cleared in shock, and she leaned down until her forehead touched his, her hands cupping his face, at once softer and infinitely fiercer than Gilbert, for what was more powerful than a loving mother?

"Never," she replied. "Nothing could ever make me stop loving you, Mathieu." She pressed a kiss to his nose, then the top of his head as she embraced him tightly. He hugged her back, comforted by the scents of baking that always surrounded her. He remembered, out of nowhere, being a tiny baby, safe in his mother's arms, his tiny hand holding a strand of her flowing golden hair. It was so soft, he remembered, even though he knew there was no way he could recall something from so long ago in so much detail. It was in pieces, the memory, and Mathieu was correct—he did not remember the softness, his mind supplied it from the more recent memories he had of touching her hair. But he did remember the blue light of her eyes, shining down on him, so full of love. But he did not remember the green eyes watching him with just as much love from the doorway of the nursery, as they did every time Marianne was awoken by their children crying in the night; when she got up, though she never saw him, so did Arthur, and watched her feed them with a helpless appreciation, wishing in vain he could give life as she did so effortlessly.

So Mathieu's suspicions—or one of them at least—was put to rest. He was not like other men. And that meant, at long last, he knew what to say to Gilbert.

 

**. . .**

 

And, of course, the unmentioned and unnoticed. The temptation succumbed to. The old love reborn, mighty and burning and lush and breathtaking. The trysts that took place each night in the disgraced marital bed.

"Here?" Antonio had protested, the first time. "But Ar—"

"Don't," she had said, putting her finger to his lips. "Don't say his name. I don't want to hear it."

And she had straddled him, letting her clothing fall away, and he had seen her beautiful body, made only more beautiful with time, a fine wine in woman form. Her pregnancies had left her with more fat in her breasts and thighs than before, and a regular feeding of rich food had given a softness to the rest of her, but it was perfection to the Spaniard, who had seen his fill of sharp-boned women and had come to dislike how their hips jutted at their skin, how their ribs were so readily available. He did not want a skeleton. He did not want anyone, he knew that night and every night since, except Marianne.

He would have been content to simply touch her, everywhere, until dawn peeked through the curtains, but Marianne had other ideas. It had been so, so long since a man made love her. (She knew it was nothing wrong with her, and she had lain awake some nights, watching her husband sleep beside her, wondering what made it so difficult for him to enjoy intimacy these days without being drunk.)

Antonio had no trouble providing her with pleasure. He was extremely experienced with women; it was impossible to do so much travelling and be so handsome without attracting countless suitors, without even adding into the mix how charming he was. Making love with Arthur had always seemed in itself to be some sort of battle, as if she were an obstacle he was trying to conquer, a beast he strived to defeat. And, a detail Marianne made rather smug note of, his particular weapon of choice for this erotic battle was rather small compared to Antonio's.

They had to be silent, which proved harder than Marianne thought it would. She and Arthur rarely made noise during sex, aside from the rasping of skin against bedsheets or the choked gasp he always gave when he reached his peak. With Antonio, they both wound up pressing hands over the other's mouth in a desperate attempt to hush the cries from her throat and the groans in his chest. Often, with Arthur, she didn't climax, simply because he did not know how to touch her, or even that he was _supposed_ to touch her, and it wasn't as if she could _tell_ him (she had tried talking to him about kissing once, and she thought he might faint when she mentioned the word _tongue_ ). With Antonio, however, there was no such problem. In fact, one of their shared nights in the middle of the week when Gilbert had decided to make a tent and sleep outdoors with the boys, she was quite sure she tumbled over her body's sensual summit five times. Nothing could make her swoon more than Antonio rolling off of her, caressing her thighs until he had gotten his breath back, then returning his lips to her jaw as if that was their natural place and mumbling huskily, _Again?_

But it was not just sexual, obviously. Through the week of Arthur's absence, they spoke of all the things they had missed from each other over all those years apart. He told her how he had gotten the scars that riddled his bronze body (fights, imprisonment, more fights, one accident involving Gilbert and a silk blindflold). She told him how she was at once glad and saddened that none of her children had green eyes (no eyes to remind her of Arthur, but none to remind her of Antonio, either). He called her Mari. She called him Toni.

He called her _mi diosa._ She called him _mon ange._

They both wanted the one thing they had agreed not to risk: waking up in each other's arms. No matter how late Antonio stayed, when Marianne's eyes opened, he was gone, with only a few stray brown hairs and the faint scent of his sweat betraying their night together.

But on the final night (not that they knew it was the final night at the time), Marianne looked up into Antonio's eyes and said what she had never said to him, what she should have said to him so long ago.

" _Je t'aime."_

And, despite what it meant in this country, in this house, in this bed, Antonio held her as close as he could, close enough that their breaths became one and their heartbeats danced with each other, and he told her what he had always thought, what he should have said to her so long ago.

" _Te amo."_

The next morning found them twined together beneath the sheets, like a dream come true, and Arthur Kirkland walking through the door, like a bloody living nightmare.


	4. Chapter 4

_**England, 1778** _

 

Arthur Kirkland was not generally a man prone to outbursts. He could count on one hand the number of times he had raised his voice before his marriage, and each time shamed him more than the last. But yelling at Marianne was different. The way she saw right through him, crashed through every defensive wall he put up; the way she pushed him to his breaking point and taunted him when he started to shake with the terrible feelings inside him; the way she knew precisely how to get to him, but still managed to make him feel like an insect underfoot even without trying . . . He hated it. No, he despised it. Loathed it. He wanted it to end. And, in all honesty, yes, he had (on more than one occasion) considered striking his wife. Countless men did it; they had every right, as husbands and masters. But he didn't want to resort to violence. The shouting and cursing were bad enough. He believed it inappropriate for a man to hit another of equal strength, so hitting a woman of (naturally) lesser musculature was hardly fair. (He ignored the easily muted voice of reason in his mind that pointed out he was both shorter and thinner than his wife. And his daughter, for that matter.) So, as much as he hated the way Marianne made him feel, he didn't want to physically harm her.

But when he stepped into his bedchamber and found her in that Spaniard's arms, it felt as though the Devil himself took control of his hands, lunging forward and wrapping burning fingers around her throat.

She awoke instantly, confusion and terror—the worst terror—widening her eyes. Arthur had never seen the expression of a human being deprived of air, that deep-rooted horror, the desperate striving for the most basic element of survival. The surreality of it almost made Arthur forget it was him causing it, kneeling on the edge of his bed, strangling his adulterous wife.

He had actually been glad to be home, if you can believe it. The week of initiation into lordship had been exhausting. He would have liked to collapse into his bed and sleep the weekend away. But, as always, fate had other plans.

" _Qué mierda_?!" Antonio leapt up and grabbed Arthur's wrists in a hold that he thought might actually crack the slender bones of his forearms. Arthur released Marianne, shocked by the shouted Spanish, the painful grip on his arms, but mostly the fact that Antonio was naked. When was the last time he'd seen another man unclothed? He couldn't tear his eyes from the muscled lines of the Spaniard's body—until he was literally torn from the room, a rough hand dragging him backward by the collar of his coat.

Gilbert, still in loose nightclothes, glared down at him with fiery eyes. Those eyes had no business being in the skull of a mortal man. What did that Prussian's soul look like, Arthur wondered. What heinous things had he done to cause himself to look like that? It was the face of a sinner, a murderer, a villain. How had he allowed this man to come into his home? How had he allowed _either_ of them in? Old friends of Marriane's, ha! What rubbish. He should have known, from the moment he saw them, the hell they would turn his home into.

He jerked out of Gilbert's grasp. "Unhand me, you uncivilized bastard!" He glared furiously into his bedroom, where Antonio had— _thank God_ —tugged on some trousers, and Marianne had wrapped the blankets around herself, still watching Arthur with wide eyes. He'd expected her to be up and fighting, to get into a shouting match with him as usual. But no, she stayed on the bed, looking like the frightened lady that she was, with Antonio standing beside her protectively, gently touching her neck with his fingertips and asking, "Are you okay, Mari?"

"Daddy?" Peter was standing at the end of the hall, with Mathieu behind him, both of them cautious to come any closer. Frightened, like their mother, of what he might be capable of.

A little voice inside Arthur said, _You've been home not ten minutes and you've attacked your wife and scared your children. Excellently done. The lords would be so impressed._

A louder voice said, _She cheated on me. She is a sinner. A whore! My own wife!_

How mad had he been, letting these two men tear his life apart? He should never have let Marianne bring the family back home. He should have put his foot down, like a real man would, and ordered her to stay in the Golden Square mansion until he got them their own.

Arthur took a step forward and pointed with arm outstretched at Antonio, the pose of a righteous accusation. "You sluttish fiend. How dare you go to bed with a married woman?" In the corner of his eye, he saw Mathieu covering Peter's ears and herding the boy away, and raised his voice to address them. "No, stay, both of you. You deserve to know that your mother is a trull."

Peter clearly had no idea what his father was talking about, but a betrayed light came into Mathieu's eyes. Arthur relished in the companionship of it. At least he and his eldest son had the same common ground now: both betrayed by Marianne. A dark satisfaction rose in Arthur. _Now do you see what she's really like? All these years you've preferred her to me, and now you see the evil inside her._

"I trusted you," Arthur spat, glaring past the damned Spaniard to his wife. He was glad his voice wasn't letting him down; often, when he got very angry, he got shaky, and his voice trembled and sometimes broke. It hardly gave off an air of someone who was correct and believed they were (which he was, thank you very much). But, fortunately, today his throat did not let him down, and his words were laced with acid. "Of course I did, why would I not? I _married_ you. We have children! And I left for _one week_! And you jumped in bed with this—this—philanderer!"

He stood there, chest heaving, left breathless by his verbal flood of outrage, and had what could only be described as a moment of enlightenment. He realized that his family was not up in arms over this, as he was. His sons were not crying, _Mother, how could you do this to us?!_ His wife had not thrown herself down to beg for Arthur's forgiveness, a forgiveness he would have of course given. They would not go forth into a shining future of Marianne trying, until the end of her days, to make this up to her poor husband. _Breakfast in bed_ would have been the first order of business, in a long list of duties she would happily undertake, if she wanted their marriage to be a happy one, which of course she would now that she had seen the error of her ways.

But no.

That was not what Arthur saw.

He saw Mathieu and Peter watching with matched expressions, both of their pale faces contorted with frowns of concern and sympathy. _Sympathy_ , at a time like this? _Concern_? They looked as though they were worried about him. They looked . . . Arthur might have been losing his mind—and who could blame him for that—but damn the king's daughter if they didn't look as though they wished he wasn't making such a big deal of this.

And, as he looked to Gilbert, to Antonio, to Marianne, he saw that very same expression. Their eyes said, _Can you please just stop that? We never asked you to come in here and shout at us. Do you have to be such a bother?_ The furrow between Antonio's brow spoke of a small bit of guilt, but Arthur knew it wasn't guilt for disgracing him, personally, just guilt at the concept of adultery. _I know it's bad, but what can you do? I couldn't just not sleep with your wife._

Arthur stepped backward, arms limp at his sides. "G-get—" He stuttered, _curses_! He cleared his throat angrily and snapped, "Get out of my house. Bloody pair of whoremongers." He flicked a hand at Marianne. "And you, too. Go with them. I don't care if I never see you again. It shall be too soon. Enjoy your future in the depths of hell with your two bawds."

He stormed away, to his office, because he could not stand with all of their scornful eyes on him for another second. His heart was shivering in his chest, and he tried to take deep breaths as he watched out the window: Gilbert readying the carriage, Antonio lifting the old white dog into it, helping Marianne up inside, and—Peter?

Arthur dashed outside. "What are you doing, stealing my children away from me? Let him down!"

Peter froze on the folding steps, uncertain, and Marianne opened her mouth, but it was Mathieu who spoke.

"No," he replied, far cooler than Arthur had ever heard from the normally soft boy. "We don't want to stay here. We would rather live with Mother."

"And Antonio and Gilbert!" Peter added eagerly, before the Spaniard gently nudged him into the carriage beside his mother.

Arthur felt his eye twitching again, and the beginnings of a splitting headache in his temple. He felt every hair on his head, and every subtle creak of his aging bones. His ribs felt burning hot under his skin. He wondered if he was about to have a conniption. Or a stroke.

But when he finally got words past the storm of emotion inside him, they were barely audible whimpers, "But you . . . you can't just leave me . . ."

And he realized that for all the fury inside him, there was one hundred times that in heartbreak.

A pained light came into Mathieu's beautiful violet eyes, and for one hopeful moment—the moment that killed him more than any of it had, in retrospect—Arthur thought his son might change his mind and stay simply out of pity. But alas, the boy shook his head, mumbled an apology, and climbed into the carriage. In grim silence, Antonio folded up the stairs and gave Arthur one final glance.

Green met green.

In those hazel-tinged eyes, Arthur saw something that could never be found in his posh sort of Englishman. It was something animal, something instinctive. Something felt with the heart and body, not thought with the brain. A basic dominance loomed in those eyes. This was an assertion, the staking of a claim.

_This is my family now._

_Not yours._

_Mine._

Arthur could only stand, agape, tears gathering in his eyes.

" _Beeil dich_ ," Gilbert said from the driving seat. He didn't look at Arthur, in precisely the same way the lords didn't look at their servants. Like he was too good to even gift Arthur with his attention.

Antonio turned his back to Arthur, climbed up to join Gilbert, and the horses pulled Arthur's family away from him. Someone had drawn the curtains in the carriage windows, so he could not catch a glimpse of them. When they turned the corner into the trees, Arthur was officially alone.

He'd been happy to be home.

He fell to his knees and sobbed until his voice was lost, and there was no sound except the clucking and scratching of the chickens. Marianne's chickens. Through his tears, Arthur watched them pecking at the ground for a long, long while. Marianne's bloody chickens.

Hours later, he stood in the kitchen he couldn't remember ever being in, tipping back his second bottle of whiskey as he watched the sun set over the ridge, its warm light blessing the blades of grass and glinting off the pools of blood that oozed around Marianne's chickens, all of them decapitated by the axe that, just the night before, his wife's lover had used to chop wood to keep them warm.

Killing, it turned out, was a lot easier when your heart was well and truly shattered.

Logically, if he maintained this feeling, it wouldn't be so difficult to track down Antonio Carriedo and treat him with the same manners he had the chickens.

Then again, the Spaniard was quite big, and he had the Prussian with him. Arthur couldn't overpower one; with both, it would be over before it began.

He realized it probably wouldn't make him feel better, but he had resigned himself twenty-four years ago that nothing would ever make him feel better. He wasn't interested in that. He just wanted justice to be served, that's all.

 _I think_ , Arthur thought to himself, _I might need some help._

And then the alcohol hit him with full force, and he was out before he hit the floor.

 

**. . .**

 

It seemed to Amelia that there was a severe disparity between the number of hours in a day and the amount of words she wanted to express to the people around her. She always had people around her—of course she did. She was Amelia Kirkland! Or, more to the point, she was the sort of person who felt most at home when she had people on all sides, preferably staring at her. That was one of the few things she had in common with her very, very French mother—they both enjoyed the effect they had on an audience, especially when they were dressed to impress. Although, she and her mother had very different ideas of what dressing to impress entailed. Amelia liked showing as much skin as possible, which was great for getting attention, but her parents hated it. They'd both ranted to her about it, something to do with reputation or being ladylike, all nonsense to her. Her grandmother was even afraid to show her forearms, imagine! Amelia wouldn't be caught dead in those frilly white elbow-length gloves. They would be stained with food and dirt and everything else in an hour, and they would get in the way when she was trying to play sports with Peter or her uncles.

But words! From the moment she opened her eyes in the morning to the moment she closed them at night, her mouth overflowed with words. Mathieu had caught her even mumbling in her sleep on a couple occasions. He was awfully quiet; she suspected she had taken the lion's share of the words from him (which might have made sense if they were twins, but since they were born a few years apart, her logic wasn't exactly spotless). Despite their differences, she loved her brother. She loved _both_ her brothers, in different order depending on what mischief Peter had gotten into.

When she strolled down the path to her home (the men in town had offered to give her a free carriage ride, but she waved them off and assured them that she enjoyed walking and was not at all bothered by the weight of her luggage) she was absolutely bursting with all the stories from her visit to Scotland. She couldn't decide which one to start with. The bar fight? The second bar fight? How she'd won in an arm wrestle against three Scottish boys— _they really call each other laddie, and some of them sound like they're choking on something, and I think they were speaking a different language at some points, I guess that must've been Gaelic, what funny people_ —and then kissed one of them in the alley behind the pub. (She'd have to tell that one to Mathieu only, because Peter was the world's worst snitch when he was told something was a secret, and Arthur's heart would stop if he found out.)

Though she wasn't the most receptive of people, she still noticed quite quickly that something was not right. She couldn't put her finger on it (Mathieu, had he been there, would have pointed out the pasture gate left open and swaying gently in the breeze). The place, Amelia finally realized, was too quiet. There was no nickering of horses. No clucking of chickens. And, most disorienting, there was no arguing coming from the house.

Upon walking round to the door, she dropped her bags in horror. The yard was strewn with blood and feathers, pieces of birds that didn't really resemble chickens anymore. Fox tracks (she noticed these because she was an avid hunter, or as much as a woman could be, which wasn't very much at all) showed that they had supplied at least one meal to a hopeful wanderer. Who had killed Mother's chickens, for no reason? Now real fear chilled her. If someone was crazy enough to murder chickens, were they crazy enough to kill a family of nobles? _Oh, God, is that why it's so quiet?_

She tore into the house without even a thought toward what she would do if the assailant was still inside. She looked into the sitting room—empty, but no blood smears was a good sign—then dashed into the kitchen. Arthur, sprawled over the floor, stirred when the door knocked against his legs.

Amelia knelt at Arthur's side, heart racing. "Father?" She gently lifted his head and shoulders into her lap, and winced when she saw the result of a conquest with, if the sour smell and empty bottles was anything to judge by, whiskey. There was a disgusting puddle of vomit she really hoped she wouldn't be the one to clean up, but no blood, aside from a few dried splashes on his trousers. _From the chickens?_ He had a growing bruise on his temple, from crashing to the ground, she assumed.

"It looks like you had a really bad night," she told him, smoothing his hair. It was thinning on the top, she noticed for the first time. She'd never realized how old he was, but it was true, he was forty years old, his life half over already. The thought made her want to hug him close, which she couldn't do because he hated that sort of thing and because he was rather disgusting at the moment. Still, her heart was a bit broken, seeing him so helpless on the floor, the wrinkles in his face—from age and stress—only deepened by his less-than-rested state.

Arthur opened his eyes blearily, cringed at the light, and groaned as he brought a hand up to his forehead. "What the bloody hell . . ." His words were badly slurred. (Amelia had never seen her father fully drunk, or she would have known that he still was right now.) He looked up at her, his eyes taking a moment to focus, but when they did, they softened and he reached up to touch her cheek. "My silly goose."

She smiled. No matter what else she was feeling, hearing him call her by his special nickname for her made her heart swell with nostalgia and love. She knew her brothers weren't as close as she was to their father, and she knew that most people would claim that one couldn't be close to someone as stoic as Arthur. But she had been with him in enough quiet moments that she knew there was a vulnerable man inside that stiff exterior, one desperate for connection but unable to accomplish it. Minds and hearts spoke different languages, and Arthur was only fluent in the former. People like Marianne only spoke the latter. And Mathieu, or Amelia herself? She liked to think they thought with both, leaning either way when needed. Mathieu and Peter thought Arthur was bad, even frightening, but Amelia knew better. He was just a man with a troubled heart.

"Where's Lydia?" Amelia asked. She didn't care for the maid, but one would think the woman would have enough propriety to help her master off the floor!

"Sent her away," Arthur replied gruffly, though his drunken tongue made him sound less than threatening. "Told her to take a holiday in hell for all the care I have."

Somehow, Amelia wasn't surprised. _Now we'll have to find ourselves a new maid._ But that was a matter for another time. "Tell me what happened," Amelia said, slowly in case his thoughts were still muddled from hitting the floor (they were pretty muddled, but not because of the floor).

Arthur's relation of the events was sluggish, hindered by his slurring tongue and general state of emotional instability. He wept as he told her about Marianne's friends, a Prussian and a Spaniard, invading their home and wreaking havoc. Amelia couldn't believe her ears. An affair? She would have cried, as well, if not for the conflicting emotions. What if her father was confused, drunk, making it up? But something like this . . . it was one of those things that simply couldn't be fabricated. She was taken aback more than anything by the fact that they had left Arthur by himself. Surely Marianne knew better than that? Surely she knew that her husband would end up like this, or worse? _He could have really hurt himself._ She felt anger flare at the irresponsibility of her mother. The marriage was not a happy one, and an affair was an inevitable consequence of that to Amelia's mind, but to leave Arthur helpless against the feelings that could so easily overwhelm him . . . Amelia smoothed her father's hair down again. She wanted to hug him, but hair smoothing would have to suffice.

"We need to send word to Scotland," Arthur was saying now, having sat up with his weight supported by the cupboards. "We need Alistair."

"Too bad you didn't do it a bit earlier," Amelia remarked. "Alistair could've come back with me." She remembered her uncle's words, when she asked him why he lived in Scotland when his family was in England. _Home isn't always where your family is,_ he'd said. _Sometimes home is something you have to find for yourself. Your heart will know when you do. It'll tell you._ And she believed him. He'd seemed so at ease among the misty moors, even though they were rather spooky to her. She preferred sunny places. Which meant—and this had occurred to her more than once over the years—that she really ought to leave England behind. She'd actually considered going to America, before this war started. _Hopefully they won't tear the place apart too much,_ she thought. _I want to have something left for me._

"I'll write a letter to him," Amelia said, since she suspected anything her father put down on paper in his current state wouldn't be legible. "What do you want it to say? A request to come and help round the house?"

Arthur's brow furrowed, eyes dark. "No. Tell him to bring his pistols."

Amelia, for the first time in a long time, did not know what to say. ". . . Why?"

"The Spaniard stole my wife from me. He is a thief. I am a lord." Arthur's gaze was unfocused, but his words left no mystery of his determination. There was no stronger will among men than the will for revenge. "I sentence him to death."

 

**. . .**

 

Mathieu tugged gently but insistently on Kuma's lead. "Come on, we're almost there," he murmured. "I know it's a lot of stairs, but you can do it."

The old dog whimpered, panting from the effort of the last three flights, but he obeyed his master—his friend, as Mathieu preferred to think—and continued his slow way up the rickety steps. Mathieu feared the change of scenery from the country to the cramped streets of London had taken their toll on the canine. _And Kuma's just old_ , he thought, with a twinge of sadness. _He won't be around forever. Probably, he'll die soon. Probably, everything bad will happen at once. That's usually the way it goes._

He'd taken to pessimism in the past few days, and he didn't think he could be blamed for it. Currently, their little pack of Kirklands-and-friends-of was in hiding, living in a tenement in what was apparently called the Rookery. (Mathieu had never heard of it, but that was because Arthur only spoke of the beautiful parts of London, because how could anyone brag abut a shoddy place like this?) They could afford better—they'd sold the horses and done away with the carriage so they wouldn't be traced by it—but Antonio promised them that this was far safer than staying in a respectable hotel. _How?_ Marianne had lamented. _We are surrounded by criminals!_ Gilbert had nodded warily. _Exactly. We know criminals. I'd rather deal with them than aristocrats any day._ Mathieu wasn't so sure he agreed with them, but Marianne did. Or perhaps she just realized that they had much better odds of survival if they stuck together. Whatever the reason, they were here in a place that Arthur Kirkland would have been shamed to admit existed, tucked into one of the many crannies of London.

Their flat was just one room with two beds, one for the children and one for Marianne and Antonio (Gilbert and Kuma slept on the floor). Marianne had protested that he would hurt his back, but he'd just scoffed. _A seaman can sleep anywhere. I've slept snuggled up to Carriedo, this couldn't be any worse._ He'd glanced at Mathieu, but the boy hadn't been able to spare even a smile. This place was just too bleak. He'd never considered himself spoiled until now, but it was true. He wasn't used to living in a place with no glass in the windows, just balled-up brown paper. He wasn't used to the fear of having no idea what would come next. He wasn't used to pushing through streets clogged with people, keeping his head down lest anyone recognize him while he walked Kuma. That was the only reason he left the flat. Antonio had taken Marianne and Peter out to look for a meal to bring back, but Mathieu had declined the invitation to go. He couldn't take being around so many people for so long. It overwhelmed him, along with everything else. He was a listener, a watcher, and this was all too much for him. He felt like his mind would burst, so full of jagged, poking thoughts it was.

He closed the door of the flat behind him—it didn't even lock, for God's sake—and slumped back against it, hands covering his face. The tears didn't come readily. A sob was building as slowly as possible in his throat, agonizing and burning. This was so impossible. He didn't want to feel betrayed by his mother—he understood that a heart sometimes just had to be followed—but he couldn't help it. _How could she do this to us? How could my parents let me end up here?_

"Mäuschen. What did I tell you about crying?"

Mathieu dropped his hands. Gilbert was standing in the middle of their room, Kuma sprawled in exhaustion at his feet. The Prussian's eyebrow was arched in derision, but his eyes were kind. Even the parts of his face were at odds. He didn't fit in, just like Mathieu didn't fit in. _And like Arthur._

"I'm just—" Mathieu cleared his throat when his voice broke. "I'm just frightened. I . . . I hate it here. I really hate it here."

Gilbert nodded, stepping over to gently wipe the tears from Mathieu's cheeks. "You don't feel safe."

Mathieu shook his head, sniffling.

Gilbert's fingers lingered on the boy's soft cheek as he looked down into his eyes. "I will keep you safe. I promise."

It was the pledge of a soldier. A swear of allegiance. A psalm from a guardian angel.

Mathieu was afraid of everything else in his life. He refused to be afraid of this. Letting Gilbert's strong hand cup his face, he gazed upward and whispered, "I want you to do more to me than keep me safe."

Gilbert's shoulders seemed to stiffen, and he searched Mathieu's face, brow low on his crimson eyes. "You're certain?"

Mathieu nodded against his hand. He had thought about it, over and over again. He had done nothing but think his whole life. He'd had enough worrying. He simply wanted to act. To feel. He let his eyelids droop as Gilbert leaned down to him, and he had just stretched up on his toes, rising like a flower to the sun, when the door crashed open and Gilbert shoved Mathieu behind him. Mathieu stood agape, body shivering with sensation—the pain where Gilbert's hand had grabbed his arm to move him, the heat of Gilbert's breath fading from Mathieu's lips, and the chilling shock of seeing his father and uncle pointing flintlock pistols at Gilbert.

"Is that the bastard?" Alistair asked, eyes unwavering from Gilbert. The auburn-haired man looked incomplete without a cigar or pipe in hand, but the pistol wasn't a bad replacement. He'd always struck Mathieu as someone capable of dangerous acts. Definitely the roughest of the Kirkland brothers, though not as rough as Gilbert. He was another breed entirely.

Arthur Kirkland with a gun in hand, however, was like seeing a horse in a dress. It reached circus attraction levels of absurd in Mathieu's mind. He was astonished his father even knew _how_ to hold a pistol. But the most frightening part of the image was Arthur's face. It was not distraught as it had been when they left the house in the country. It was hard, cold, dark-eyed. It was not a face Mathieu had ever seen from his father. It chilled him to his bones.

"Yes," Arthur replied, stepping a bit further into the room, though still a good six feet from Gilbert. "That's him." His voice matched his face, emotionless and low. "How good to see you again, Mr. Beilschmidt. I see your companion isn't here."

"Well-spotted." Gilbert's hands were half-lifted at his sides, a reluctant obeisance to the firearms but not to the men holding them. Mathieu couldn't see his face, but he would bet his inheritance that the man was glaring murderously with a despicable smirk carved into his cheek. "I guess we'll have to postpone your vengeful murder. That's what this is, _ja_? I'm glad you dressed for the occasion. Both of you, what a privilege."

Arthur looked down at his expensive clothing, and Alistair gave him the barest glance, but that tiny moment of distraction was all it took. When Gilbert moved, it was like the lion Arthur had taken the family to see at the Tower. Such a big lumbering beast it had seemed, padding lazily back and forth in its cage, until a man drunk from too much celebrating had stumbled within reach of the bars. Then, the cat had moved like liquid, like mercury, like lightning. Such savage beauty in the flow of muscles under its golden pelt, and such awed terror Mathieu had felt as that massive paw swiped out. The man leapt out of the way just in time, and the lion had been beaten back with sticks. It had stalked back and forth angrily, eyeing back all those who gawked at it, daring them to challenge him. Three women had screamed, and one had fainted. Mathieu would never forget the power of that lion.

And now here was that cat in man form, crimson eyes matching the wild intensity of those tawny ones, taking the gun from Arthur as easy as you please, throwing an arm around his neck, and shoving the end of the pistol against his temple. "Calm down, all of you," he said, voice startlingly calm, "before someone makes a mess."

Arthur's eyes were bulging—from horror or from the pressure of Gilbert's arm, Mathieu couldn't tell—and Alistair's mouth hung open in outrage, unable to determine the moment Gilbert had gained the upperhand. Whenever it had happened, it was clearly a permanent change, because now he was saying, "Mathieu, take the pistol from him. He'll hand it over nicely, if he doesn't want his . . . what are you, cousins?"

"Brothers," Alistair replied in irritation. He'd thought Arthur might be redeemed after forty years of being a lady of a man. _I need your help to kill two men._ What could be a better bonding activity than that? But no, of course, Arthur was still Arthur. Completely inept, as always.

Gilbert nodded thoughtfully, as though they were having a civil conversation over tea. "Yes, I see the resemblance. You can just set it on the bed, Mathieu. You might as well just sit down. This might take a while."

Mathieu accepted the gun from his uncle, awkwardly avoiding his gaze. What was he supposed to do, say hello? Embrace him after years of separation? Ask how Amelia's visit had gone? She must have been home, waiting for them. _Home, or the mansion?_ He wasn't about to ask Arthur. His father looked like he might faint at any second—again, from horror or from Gilbert's strength, it was impossible to say. Mathieu put the gun down facing the wall and sat a respectful distance away from it, with Kuma ambling over to curl up at his feet. The poor old dog had been jolted awake by the break-in, and he just wanted to find a quiet place to lie down. _I know how you feel, Kuma_. Mathieu reached down to stroke his friend's soft ears. It was a comfort to them both.

"What might take a while?" Alistair asked, hands fisted at his sides, angry to be rendered useless.

"Antonio coming back," Gilbert replied, still totally at ease with the whole situation. "This has more to do with him than with me. So we'll wait for him to return with Marianne and Peter. And some dinner, hopefully." He leaned his shoulders back against the wall, as relaxed as a man could possibly be while holding a gun to another man's head, and flashed a grin that glinted deadly as a knife. "'Cause I don't know about the rest of you, but I am starving."


	5. Chapter 5

_**England, 1778** _

 

Antonio Carriedo was a man who believed in destiny. He preferred to think of it as destiny, instead of as Fate, that cruel mistress men bemoaned for cursing them. But no one ever saw destiny in a negative light. He had always preferred to be optimistic, something Gilbert sometimes admired and other times scorned. Antonio believed his life had been set out long before he began it; the stars above him knew what he was going to do even when he did not. They knew he would be born in a bordello to a chocolate-eyed whore. They knew he would run away, join a pack of street urchins, start thieving whatever his sticky fingers could grasp. They knew he would find his way to the sea, where he would eventually meet a silver-haired prisoner who spoke with a peculiar accent. _You let me out of these chains, we'll take over this ship._ The stars must have exchanged knowing smiles when the Spaniard, a few scant months past fifteen, was filled with a seductive mixture of fear and excitement at the thought of a mutiny. The first of many. He wasn't unskilled with a sword, but it was the red-eyed Prussian who led the two-man charge, who made the first kill, who saved Antonio again and again. Of course, over the following decades, they saved each other enough times that the idea of debt was scorned for the more satisfying acknowledgement of loyalty, comradeship, brotherhood. They robbed any ship they pleased, meddled in any affair that caught their fancy. Gilbert taught him the most important lesson: the colors a ship was flying didn't matter. Prussian, Spanish, French—it did not matter. What mattered was the loot inside. And the very same rule applied to people.

Now, walking up the narrow stairs of their tenement with Peter Kirkland asleep in his arms, he spared a thought for the all-knowing stars. What did they think of these developments? It wasn't the first time he'd climbed into a married woman's bed, but it _was_ the first time he felt this unspeakably powerful love. It was just as strong—no, he thought, stronger—than the love he felt for Gilbert. He never should have listened to those stars that beckoned him out of the seaside shack that last dawn. _Take me with you_ , Marianne had begged. And he had left, believing he would be back within the week, a month at the most. _Seventeen years._ He'd wept, more than once, when he was stuck out to sea, miles from France, Spain, the places he would always call home. Gilbert had come to him one night as he cried, shoved his shoulder. _Come on, bring yourself together. Don't be a lady about it._ Antonio had lashed out, striking his friend in the jaw, and after the pair had rolled around on the deck for a sufficient amount of time, they leant against each other, spine to spine, and passed a bottle back and forth. _You're not the only one who misses her,_ Gilbert had said, voice ragged from the alcohol. Antonio had felt one moment of pure hatred at the thought of choosing between his friend and his girl. Gilbert must have felt him stiffen, because he said, _Yeah, I know, she's yours. You can love a woman without fondling under her skirt, you know._ And Antonio had realized that, in all their time together, he had never seen Gilbert so much as kiss a woman. It was true that they tended to be wary of his appearance at first, but after a few drinks, they pawed at the Prussian just as much as they clambered over Antonio. But Gilbert never kissed, never squeezed, never flirted without sarcasm. He preferred his fights to love-making, it seemed. _You spend every waking moment surrounded by men,_ Antonio had once said to him. _Don't you ever tire of them?_ Gilbert had just shrugged. _Guess not._

Antonio hoisted Peter higher in his arms; the boy was really too big to be carried around like this, but he was content to be babied, his arms loose around Antonio's neck, head flopping over his shoulder. Antonio didn't mind the young boy, but he didn't have much experience with children. Still, if Marianne was willing . . . and they made it through this twisted mess with Arthur . . . he wouldn't mind trying for a baby of his own. Furthering his bloodline. It was a thought more noble than Antonio was used to.

At the top of the stairs, on their floor, Antonio paused and turned back to watch Marianne join him. She had never liked cities, and it showed in the very lines of her face, the irritation in her eyes. Marianne was a beautiful woman, but she was fiery when she wanted to be. Antonio wished he could sort all this out for her, but he knew as well as the stars did: this would not end without confrontation.

So he was not very surprised to find the door of their flat hanging open, with Gilbert holding Arthur at gunpoint and a red-haired man standing at a respectful distance. He did a quick glance around the room to make sure everyone was okay—Mathieu was alright, and Kuma was tired but alive—before saying, "Hello again, Señor Kirkland."

Arthur spluttered, "How _dare_ you hold my son?! Put him down this _instant_!"

"Relax, old woman," Gilbert retorted. He looked to Antonio. _We can handle this, right?_ Antonio gave a little nod, and Gilbert released the Englishman, pistol pointed at him casually, since there was little cause for concern. It wasn't as though Arthur Kirkland—his _Lordship_ —knew how to disarm someone.

Marianne seemed to realize this, because once she got over the shock of seeing Arthur and Alistair, she carried the bag of steaming fish and chips over to the bed and sat down beside Mathieu, tossing the pistol to the floor indifferently.

"Oi, be careful with that, I just had it fixed," the ginger-haired man protested. He spoke without the refinery of Arthur; he had the hints of a Scottish brogue, if Antonio's ears weren't mistaken.

"How'd it break the first time?" Gilbert asked.

"Gettin' tossed round the place," the Scot grumbled.

"Ah, always the way. I hope you brought enough for me," Gilbert added, addressing Marianne.

She was getting Mathieu's portion in some semblance of order and ignored the question. As Antonio set Peter gently down on the mattress beside his brother (the sleeping boy was apparently lost in his dreams, for he barely stirred) he replied, "We brought extra."

"Oh, good, that's fitting," Gilbert remarked. "Since we have guests."

"EXCUSE ME." Arthur stood near the center of the room, cheeks red, looking less than sane, all things considered. Maybe it was how his eyes seemed too big for his face. Or how he'd tried to smooth his hair back neatly and it was falling over his forehead messily anyway. He wasn't really an ugly man, Antonio thought, but he wasn't exactly handsome, either. If his personality was even half as attractive, they _might_ get somewhere with all this.

"There is no need to shout," Marianne snapped. She held up a bundle of greasy food wrapped in brown paper. "Here, Gilbert."

"Could you bring it here, Toni?" Gilbert asked sweetly. "My hand is full."

Antonio carried the bundle over and passed it to Gilbert, who managed to grasp it in one hand and tear off bits of fish and fried potatoes. It was not an appealing process to watch, but Antonio was immune, since he had seen absolutely every disgusting thing Gilbert was capable of doing and, if asked, could easily list them from worst to blinding to life-ruining, and vice versa.

Arthur took in the people around him, and Antonio knew precisely what the look of desperate sadness on his face was from. It was not from being ignored. It was not from being humiliated. It was not even from his family essentially rejecting him. It was simply caused by the heartbreaking change in Arthur's life: for a while, he had the illusion of control. And now he had lost it.

 _It's the stars_ , Antonio thought, feeling sympathy for this pitiful lord. _The stars know. Not us._

"Señor Kirkland," he said, making the Englishman jump. How did Marianne wind up with this skittish thing? "I think you and your friend should sit down." He gestured to the other bed. "So we can discuss this calmly."

"And so I can eat my food," Gilbert added, words muffled by fish and batter.

Arthur winced in disgust, grimacing, then ducked his head and obeyed Antonio, sitting with the redheaded man (neither of them looked happy to be on the same bed). Gilbert dropped the pistol on the floor and resumed leaning back against the wall; at the Scot's exasperated noise, Gilbert told him, "It's nothing personal against you. I just hate the man you came in here with."

Arthur pointed at Gilbert, sitting up straight in defiance. "Look here, I'll not sit here and be bullied by some . . ." He trailed off, lip curling as he struggled to come up with a fitting name for Gilbert, before finally putting his nose in the air and finishing, ". . . thug."

Gilbert's pale eyebrows spiked. "Wow. There's no coming back from that."

Mathieu put a hand over his mouth to hide his smile.

Antonio cleared his throat, glancing pointedly at Gilbert. As much as he liked to keep things lighthearted, this was a necessary evil. Talking it out was better than lunging with whetted blades. In this situation, anyway. Gilbert understood, gave a small nod. _Let's get this over with._

"I know this is more between Arthur and Marianne," Antonio began, "but after what happened at the house I don't trust him to be alone with her. So I think we should do this as we are." He glanced at Marianne. "This may be a stupid question, but who do you want to be with?"

"It is a stupid question." Any good humor she had left after moving to London had been shattered by seeing her husband. Her ocean eyes were lightless as she stared across the room at him. "I want to be with Antonio. I do not love you anymore, Arthur. We do nothing but fight, and fight, and fight. We do not belong together."

Arthur's eyes could hold no more despair. "But we are married. Does that mean nothing?"

Marianne nodded. " _Oui_. It does mean something. It is the lock on the cage you keep me in."

As it turned out, Arthur's eyes _could_ hold more despair, but a bleak flavor of it. He slumped in defeat, tears welling in those emerald eyes. "I . . . I'm sorry—"

To everyone's surprise, it was the Scot who interrupted Arthur. "Don't bother." He shook his head, impatient to have all this behind him. "No point in apologizing. It's done, move on."

Perhaps if Marianne and Arthur were alone he would have been able to speak his mind, his heart. But with an audience, he was still the repressed aristocrat, scared stiff to outstep the starched bounds of propriety. He was a man, a gentleman but still a man. He had already raised his voice, that was bad enough, but to cry in front of others? It would be unacceptable. So he squared his jaw and did some quick blinking, cleared his throat and adjusted the cuffs of his coat sleeves, and at least composed himself enough to say evenly, "We shall divorce, then. I shall handle the arrangements."

"What a gentleman," Gilbert muttered, just loud enough to be heard. Arthur gave no response; his green gaze was unwavering on Marianne.

The Frenchwoman nodded. Antonio was surprised by how blank her face was; he realized with a jolt that she was using precisely the same method to get through this that Arthur was. She was numbing herself to whatever sadness she may have felt—that, or she was simply not showing any feelings. Antonio hoped it was the latter. Marianne said, "Antonio and I will have the house in the country."

Arthur bristled. "But that house was a gift from _my_ parents," he protested.

"And you have never liked living in it," Marianne replied. "You have always wanted to live in London. And besides, your work is here. You would spend all your time away from the house, anyway. So, we will live in it. You will live in your beloved London."

Arthur was silent for a long moment, considering her words. Try as he might, he could not find fault in them. "Very well. And what of the children?"

Antonio saw panic come into Mathieu's violet eyes. As someone who had never reaped the benefits of supportive parents, Antonio couldn't relate to the boy's fear, but his heart went out to him regardless. Would the children be allowed a choice in who they wanted to live with? Peter would choose Marianne, undoubtedly—if not for her, then for the exotic delight of living with ex-pirates. Mathieu had chosen Marianne once, but would he do it again? And what of this eldest child, the daughter Antonio had yet to lay eyes on—what would she have to say about all this?

Marianne turned to her middle son. In gentle French, she told him, "You will live with me and Toni, but you may visit your father if you wish."

Mathieu looked at his mother, caring and easily understood; then at his father, prickly and barely capable of expressing himself. They were polar opposites. What had the stars been thinking when they put those two together? And yet, Mathieu felt his heart being torn between his mother and his father. His mother, who would always love him, who would take care of him as long as he needed. His father, who would always need him, or Amelia, or _someone_ to take care of him. For all his posing, Arthur Kirkland was not a man who could be left by himself. Mathieu did not have the proof of this that Amelia did (the poor chickens, Lydia, etc.) but the clever boy could sense it. If Arthur was left to deal with the heartbreak by himself, he would never get through it; it would destroy him. No, he would destroy himself in an attempt to get rid of it. How could you carve the pain out of your heart without bleeding out in the process?

Mathieu nodded to his mother and looked across the room at his father. In English, he said, "Peter and I will live with Mother, and we'll visit you when . . . well, if you have time for us."

A brief, sharp hurt flashed in Arthur's eyes. "I'll always have time for you."

Marianne and Gilbert scoffed in dubious unison.

Arthur's thick brows lowered. "I will make the time. I'm your father. Of course I will." Then, his expression lightened. "And Amelia? You didn't mention her."

Marianne raised a helpless hand, palm to the ceiling. "She will not want to live with us. She prefers to be around people. There are more people in the city than the country. She will be happy to live with you. But she must visit."

Arthur's lips curled upward, a smile both smugly triumphant and genuinely delighted. He loved his silly goose. She was his favorite, after all. "Yes. Yes, of course." He was looking quite a sight better than when he had first come into the flat. His pale skin had a bit more color to it, and his eyes—though a bit red from unfallen tears—were focused, bright. He still regarded Antonio and Gilbert with distaste, but that was to be expected. Miraculously, the situation had been sorted out, no one had been shot, and Arthur had only raised his voice once. To celebrate, Mathieu got up and gave his father a hug before he left.

"I'll see you soon, lad," Arthur whispered, voice wavering only slightly. "Take care of . . ." Here was where he might before have said _your_ _mother_. After a moment of hesitation, he finished instead with, ". . . Kuma."

Not before nor since had Arthur referred to their dog by Mathieu's chosen name for him. The boy smiled against his father's thin shoulder. When goodbye wasn't forever, it didn't feel so hard to say. In fact, it felt good, in a bittersweet way. It reminded him of how much he had loved his father, the uncomplicated love of child to parent, when he was a young toddling thing. Life would be different now. This was a fresh start, a veer in the path away from hell, toward the golden gates of heaven.

"I will," Mathieu replied softly. "Tell Amelia I said hello."

"Yes, I shall do that." Arthur adjusted the hat atop his head, smoothed the front of his frock coat, waited for Alistair to collect his pistols, then gave the occupants of the room one final nod of farewell before the pair of Kirkland brothers strode out, the door swinging shut behind them.

They had been given a second chance. Mathieu was not going to waste it.

 

**. . .**

 

"Hey, hey, slow down," Gilbert said through chuckles. He had no sooner sat down on the fallen log than Mathieu had straddled his lap, peppering kisses all over his neck. Gilbert placed a hand on the boy's back, to keep him from falling, and used the other to gently hold his chin, pulling him back enough to look him in the eye. "Are you trying to send me to the grave? I'm an old man, you know."

Mathieu stifled a giggle at how absurd the words sounded from someone like Gilbert. "You are not old." He put his hands on the man's broad shoulders, feeling how strong they were, how wonderfully solid and sure he was. A guardian, for Mathieu to have all to himself. "You're like a fine wine. You taste better with age."

Now Gilbert tipped his head back to laugh, full and loud. Mathieu loved that laugh. So self-confident. Mathieu hoped one day he could laugh like that. Gilbert brushed his thumb over Mathieu's cheek, red eyes twinkling with fond amusement. "I've turned you into a feisty little thing. I feel rather proud."

Mathieu raised a teasing eyebrow. "Maybe I was always like this, I just never showed it."

"So you're saying you've been holding back all these years." Gilbert's hand trailed down Mathieu's back to squeeze his bottom through his trousers.

" _Oui_." Mathieu arched his back, moving his hips to slowly grind against Gilbert. "I have a lot of pent-up feelings." He leaned forward more, until his lips brushed against Gilbert's, his voice dipping low. "They need to be released."

" _Verdammt_." The Prussian nuzzled into the boy's neck, where he still smelled of sugar and berries from helping his mother make tarts earlier. They had struggled to find time to get away in the past month. So much work had to be done, cleaning up the chicken massacre (Marianne was, to say the least, not pleased), tidying up the things left in disarray now that they had no maid, sorting out where everyone's bedroom would be and getting a larger supply of clothing for Gilbert and Antonio to wear. Arthur had made the arrangements of the divorce; it was expedited superbly by his status as lord, and as far as anyone knew, it was all behind them. The folks in the country had no need to worry about money or work; though Marianne no longer had a share in Arthur's fortune, the children did, and Mathieu gave the majority of his money to his housemates. What did he need to buy? Everything he wanted was right here.

Gilbert's lips found Mathieu's, and all the tiny things he took notice of slipped away, muted into peace. Blessed peace. Mathieu knew he wasn't an expert kisser, but he was working on it, and Gilbert didn't mind acting the teacher. He took the lead as they kissed and caressed each other, while Mathieu maintained his slow, steady grind against him. This was exhilarating but familiar territory; they had kissed three times since Antonio had become the master of the once-Kirkland household (not that the Spaniard would ever wish to be referred to as such). Each time Gilbert and Mathieu kissed, Mathieu felt the knowledge bore deeper inside him, like words carved into stone. _I love a man. I want a man. He loves me. He wants me back._

Gilbert stood up, strong arms holding Mathieu to him, and turned around to lay him over the log. Mathieu wrapped his legs around the Prussian's waist; those hips felt so wonderful between Mathieu's thighs. He could barely catch his breath as Gilbert unbuttoned his shirt, trailing hot kisses across his collarbones. Mathieu felt sublime submission tingling through him. Was a man supposed to enjoy being pinned down? He could not care less. This was what he wanted. He dragged his hands down Gilbert's back, feeling the muscles flex through his shirt. They had not gone this far before, but Mathieu was done with waiting. His mother had not waited, and neither would be. He had Bonnefoi blood. When he found what brought him happiness, he seized it!

Gilbert pulled back again, looking down at him, panting. Mathieu could feel how much the Prussian wanted him; it thrilled him. Gilbert could not be called a gentleman, but he was still man enough to ask, "You're sure you want this? No regrets?"

Mathieu smiled, just as breathless. "I'm sure. No regrets."

It would hurt, regardless of having no regrets, of having Gilbert's saliva slicking things, of being in love. Gilbert offered his fingers and Mathieu bit, a fair trade, the give and take of shared pain. But soon the pain became just a burning that was impossible to tell apart from the flames of desire licking inside Mathieu, so he sucked on the Prussian's fingers instead, and the older man growled as he gave in to the carnal side of his lust. He again reminded Mathieu of a lion, the deep sounds rumbling in his chest, the muscles flexing beneath his skin, the power and shameless masculinity that, in the dappled sunlight of the forest, became its own kind of regality.

Some said what they were doing was a sin. If this was what sin felt like, then Mathieu didn't mind being a sinner. This was the feeling of being lost your whole life and finally being found.

Sodomy was, obviously, not a common activity for most men, so Gilbert had not been intimate in quite a while, and Mathieu was a virgin, so neither of them lasted more than ten minutes, but it was the most beautiful, aching seven and a half minutes of Mathieu's life. He was gasping and crying out, his cheeks were red, his hair and skin were damp with sweat, but he couldn't feel self-conscious through the pleasure Gilbert gave him. What did he have to worry about, anyway? He was clearly something pretty enough, clever enough, good enough to be wanted, to be loved. He was worthy of that.

"I love you, Mäuschen," Gilbert whispered through a sigh of relief as his hips stilled and he calmed atop Mathieu.

Mathieu would have teared up, but his joy overcame even happy tears. He kissed Gilbert's lightly stubbled cheek. "I love you, lion."

They lowered down to the grass, lazing in each other's arms, sinking into bliss. Bliss that was, for the time being, uninterrupted by the twelve-year-old boy watching in the bushes, dark blue eyes bulging from the scandal they had just witnessed.

 

**. . .**

 

"What did you say kept your father from visiting?" Marianne asked, glancing over her shoulder as she set the table, then swatted at her daughter's arm. "Wait until after dinner!"

Amelia grinned, licking the icing from her finger. Along with the tarts, Marianne had made some sponge cake, as well. Mathieu had helped; Amelia wasn't a natural cook like her mother and her brother. A shame, because she _was_ a natural eater. She would just have to find a man who could make her desserts ( _he won't be Prussian_ , Gilbert assured her).

"Oh, the usual," Amelia replied absently. "Reading this and signing that. Nothing interesting. He said he was _dreadfully busy!_ "

At head of the table, Antonio smiled at Amelia's exaggerated imitation of her father. She made his voice sound far deeper than it actually was.

Marianne's lips pressed together, but she wasn't upset. Having Arthur here for visits was more awkward than anything else. She was never quite sure what to say to him. Their conversations so far had all been brief, about the weather or the garden. He still hadn't apologized for the chickens. Or the strangling. Or the seventeen-year-old argument they had been trapped in. When she thought of how much negativity was trapped within her, never to be let out (nothing was better to rely on than an Englishman's repression), she nearly teared up. She had told him so long ago that if he stopped loving her, he would long for her until the day he died. She suspected that would turn out to be true, one way or another. He would remarry, undoubtedly, to another woman he did not love. He would miss the early days of his first marriage, when they enjoyed the knicker of horses, the clean air, the birdsong. When he called her his _dearest_. And there was a part of her that would always miss those days, as well. Those happy golden times.

 _But I have Toni now_ , she thought, smiling at her handsome man. _I have what I always wanted._

She set down the final plate and tipped her head back to holler, "DINNER IS READY!"

Mathieu and Gilbert came in from the sitting room, still chattering about whatever book Mathieu had been reading. Marianne didn't care for prose; she preferred poetry, love sonnets. But Mathieu had decided to teach Gilbert how to read in English, so they were making their way through a romance. Gilbert was also teaching Mathieu how to swordfight, apparently. When the two came in from outdoors a few hours earlier, clothes dirty and sweaty, Gilbert claimed it was the fruits of a long bout of sparring. _The boy shows a lot of promise._ For some reason, Mathieu had blushed and smiled at the floor. If she was being truthful, Marianne was glad her middle son had begun to show interest in more masculine things. Gilbert was a good influence on the boys. Antonio, too. They needed strong men to teach them how to express themselves in a masculine fashion.

Marianne waited until everyone was seated, then sighed and said, "Amelia, would you go get Peter? He's in his room."

"Probably taking a nap," Amelia said knowingly, rising from her seat. "He could die in his sleep and it wouldn't wake him up."

"Don't say such things," Marianne admonished. "What a horrible thought."

"It would be more horrible if it made sense," Gilbert offered, making Mathieu nearly choke on his glass of milk.

Amelia and Marianne gave Gilbert matching unimpressed looks, then Amelia turned and strode out, down the hall, up the stairs to Peter's room. She knocked on the door before she opened it. "Wake up, Petey." The boy was there, curled up on his bed, back to her. She stepped over and nudged his shoulder. "Wake up. Dinner's ready."

Peter's eyes were closed, but in an unnatural way. He was just pretending to be asleep. Amelia felt her lips tug into a smile. "Alright, if this won't wake you, what about . . . tickling!" She wiggled her fingers around his midsection, where she knew he was most ticklish. Her brother convulsed with giggles, but he quickly sat up, moving to the head of his bed, expression troubled. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, her own expression growing serious. "What's wrong, Peter?"

He hugged his knees to his chest, unwilling to look at her.

"Hey." She scooted a little closer to him, rubbing his arm like their mother would. "You can tell me, can't you? You can tell me anything. I'm your sister, right? You know I can keep a secret if I have to."

Peter shook his head, burying his face in his arms. His voice was small. "It's really bad."

"But what is it?" Amelia asked, probing as gently as she could.

"I can't say it."

"Alright . . ." Amelia pondered how to solve this puzzle. "How about I guess, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong? Can you do that?"

Peter's nod was so subtle, Amelia almost didn't notice it. She crossed her legs (which was so much easier to do in trousers, you didn't have to worry about flashing anyone, but did her mother listen? of course not) and began her questions. "Did something happen to you?"

"No."

"Did something happen to Mattie?"

". . . Yes."

 _Oh, I'm good at this!_ "Something bad happened to Mathieu?"

"Yes."

The miserable squeak of Peter's voice made Amelia's merriment quickly perish. "He told you what it was?"

He shook his head. "I saw—"

Amelia leaned closer. "What did you see?"

Peter slowly lifted his head, eyes gleaming with tears and dread. For every secret he had stumbled across in the past, it had been impossible to keep his mouth shut about it. He was a snitch, but not a malevolent one; he was simply addicted to the childish feeling of bringing in new information to those who wouldn't have known otherwise. He loved it. But this was the first time something had happened that he wished he had not seen. He wished this had not happened. It was his fault! He'd wished for someone bad to come!

"If something bad happened," Amelia said quietly, "the right thing to do is tell someone."

He took a deep breath.

And he told.

 

**. . .**

 

It had been a very, very long time since Gilbert was caught off guard. He stayed alert while waking, and never allowed himself to sleep too deeply. He'd spent more time behind bars than not growing up, and he knew that many people would slit a throat just for the hell of it if given half a chance. Being surprised was weakness, and a sailor—a pirate—could not afford a weakness. Besides, he already had enough things going against him. His appearance, his accent, his . . . romantic interests. Trying to live a respectable life as the man he was would be damn near impossible. The domesticity of the recent weeks in Marriane's home was foreign, but not unwelcome. Unfortunately, it seemed he had been lulled into a false sense of security, because one moment he was sitting at the table, buttering a roll like a downright respectable human being—and the next, he was being smacked and slapped by Amelia, who had flown across the room like a wraith and was screaming like a banshee. He brought his arms up instinctively to protect himself, too distracted by the physical assault to decipher the verbal one. Antonio quickly came round to hold Amelia back, and Gilbert sat sideways in his chair, staring at them in confusion. Beside him, Mathieu's face was white as a sheet. What was Amelia saying?

"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO HIM?!" she shrieked, jerking against Antonio. Her eyes were lit with blue fire. She was much more frightening than her father. "YOU DISGUSTING SODOMITE!"

Gilbert's shoulders sagged a little, weary. _There's the magic word._ He knew things were going too well. He was fated to make a mess of everything, break everything he touched. That was what his brother always told him, blue eyes flat with weary disapproval, looking just like their father used to. _You ruin everything, Gilbert. You take too many risks. You're not careful enough. You're impulsive and angry, like a child. You have to stop._

He'd been careful, hadn't he? He'd pushed poor Mathieu away in the beginning. He'd forced himself to put distance between them countless times, so he wouldn't be so terribly tempted to touch the boy, kiss those soft pink lips. He was as gentle as he could be with him. He did everything right, short of asking the boy to court him. And it hadn't mattered, had it? He still wound up in the same damn mess.

Marianne stood up, slamming her hand down on the table to silence the squalling. "Amelia! What in hell are you talking about?"

Amelia tore an arm free of Antonio's hold and used it to point accusingly at Gilbert, at once a mirror image of her father. "He raped Mathieu!"

All of the air left the room. Marianne turned slowly, slowly to Gilbert. Her eyes were darker than a storm sea. Her voice was precise, low, restricted, the words coming out at a strangled pace. "Is . . . this . . . true?"

Beside him, Mathieu's mouth opened to protest, but Gilbert's hand found his knee beneath the table. Mathieu sought Gilbert's gaze, desperate and confused, but Gilbert just gave a tiny, bittersweet smile and shook his head. Mathieu was clever enough to see Gilbert's reasoning. If it was a consensual act, they would both be persecuted for breaking the law. But if it was a rape, only Gilbert was the villain. This was the only way to keep his Mathieu safe.

Before Mathieu could do anything, Gilbert stood up, pushed in his chair, and stepped back from the table. He was overly aware of Antonio's eyes burning into him, but, for the first time, he could not look at his friend. He simply inclined his head to Marianne. "Yes. It is true."

The betrayal and utter horror in her eyes was like a sword through his heart. He wanted to look away, but he kept looking, as punishment for himself. For being born as this damned creature. For tangling her son into this web of sin. For not hanging himself like he had meant to so long ago.

Antonio let Amelia go, and the girl stepped up to him with utter hatred. She spat in his face and said, "I hope you burn forever. Father was right. You have no soul."

Marianne came next, slapping him across the cheek that didn't have saliva trailing down it. Then she shoved him backward, hard enough that he staggered (he knew better than to fight it, and to be honest, he didn't have the heart). Her fury was more potent than Amelia's; it was equal parts anger and sadness. "I trusted you," she ground out, jaw clenched to keep herself from sobbing. "I trusted you!"

A painfully hard grip on his arm; Gilbert turned his head to see Antonio's green gaze, usually so expressive of what he was feeling, strangely unreadable. "You're leaving," the Spaniard said, voice just as hard and empty as his eyes. "And you're never coming back."

Gilbert wanted to look back at Mathieu, one last look at his sweet boy, but he didn't dare. It would kill him, the heartbreak of it. So he just ducked his head and let Antonio roughly shepherd him to the door and shove him away.

The pair of them stood several feet apart, Gilbert's hair glowing softly in the pink evening light, Antonio backlit and unrecognizable in the doorway. They stared at each other. They had once been able to communicate a hundred words with a few glances, but now both men felt that the other would never be understood again.

Antonio's voice came quiet and rough. "Tell me the truth. What happened with the boy?"

Inside, Amelia's voice rose. " _He shouldn't be thrown out! He should be dragged to prison and hanged to death!"_

Gilbert lifted his hands at his sides. "The same thing that happened with you and Mari."

"Don't call her that." Antonio turned his face away. The words had come out as a growl savage enough to shame him. Softer, he said, "It isn't right. Men don't . . ."

"Some do," Gilbert replied, his own voice growing hushed. "I do."

For a moment, Gilbert thought his comrade, his brother, might have sided with him. But the Spaniard shook his head, and Gilbert saw that it was the way it would always be: when forced to choose between his friend and his girl, it would always be the girl.

Gilbert forced himself to turn his back on Antonio. "You'll get your wish, Carriedo. You'll never see me again."

The silence dragged on long enough that Gilbert almost gave in and turned back to beg Antonio to reconsider. But then the farewell came, wistful but unfaltering: " _Adiós, hermano._ "

Then the door closed, and Gilbert fled into the fading light. Above, the vibrant beauty of the sunset hid the audience of sorrowful stars.

 

**. . .**

 

That night, in Mathieu's room, he sat on his mother's lap for the first time in years, curled up in her arms as she gently rocked him, stroked his hair, sang him French lullabies. He had been unable to stop crying since Gilbert left at dinner; he had been unable to force a single word past his burning throat. His family saw it as suffering, understandable and expected. He had been raped, of course he was weeping. Of course he was emotional. Of course he could not bring himself to speak.

Who could ever have predicted such a thing? It was enough to shock anyone into silence.

He was just a boy. He was not strong. He was not a man yet. He was just a boy.

But Mathieu was sickened by his silence. He despised himself for accepting their kindness, their comfort. It came at a cost unspeakably dear. He would never see Gilbert Beilschmidt, his Prussian lion, ever again.

Marianne smoothed Mathieu's hair back from his forehead. _Nothing would ever make me stop loving you_ , she had told him. _Nothing._ If he confessed to her that he loved Gilbert, that he had asked for that sinful act to be performed upon him, would her word hold true?

He lifted his head to look her in the eyes. She had been crying, too; they looked as saddened and exhausted as he felt. His lips parted, but something—be it fear or grief of a combination of the two—kept any sound stuck down inside him, unable to get out. The helplessness of it made fresh tears stream down his cheeks. He was so pathetic. Why had Gilbert even loved him in the first place?

"Oh, Mathieu," Marianne murmured, and held him close, resting her cheek against the top of his head. "It will be alright some day, _mon chéri._ Love will always come through in the end."

But he, the one who listened, barely heard her. He heard only the baying of the hounds that his father would send to hunt Gilbert down, the sharpening of Reformers' wicked metal sticks, the stomping hooves of the horse that would pull the hanging rope taut. If Gilbert died, it would be because of him. He would have killed the man that he loved, because he was a coward, always a coward.

 _Please run, Gilbert_ , he thought desperately, even though he knew his lover could not hear him. _Please run until you find a safe place to hide._ But he knew Gilbert would not listen even if he could hear the words. His lion was not a coward. He would fight until he found victory or he died in a blaze of glory. Whatever his fate, Mathieu knew: he would never see him again. So he closed his eyes and fell fitfully into his first of the nightmares—all the different ways Gilbert could be hurt or killed—that would plague him for the rest of his days.


	6. Chapter 6

_**British North America, 1786** _

 

_“Outward hence Spring hatches bright_

_From the frozen egg of Winter’s blight,_

_The grasses weep, once capped in snow_

_Now quench the crocus keen to grow.”_

Mathieu heaved a sigh and set down his pencil. His father had sent him an expensive writing case with crisp paper, several inkwells, and a dozen quills for Christmas, a gift inspired by the latest letter ( _I’ve decided to try my hand at poetry_ ). He wasn’t happy with anything he’d written. Then again, he’d been short on inspiration through the winter; he couldn’t believe how much snow fell here. _North_. That was what the Americans called it. As a child, he’d pictured “North” as a place of constant snow, blizzards, and possibly great ice monsters pushing through the cold. As it turned out, BNA—it wasn’t a very homey initialism, he had to admit—was only ice-locked for a portion of the year. In the summer, it was hotter than England; in the fall, it was brighter; in the winter, it was colder; and in the spring . . . well, it was difficult to be wetter than England, but it had its fair share of showers. Some folk complained—particularly the Loyalists who’d been shunted northward when the Americans declared independence—but Mathieu appreciated the variety in the seasons. He didn’t even mind how bitterly cold Christmas Eve was; indoors, with a fire burning, you felt safe from the dangers of the wilderness. Not that Mathieu ever felt truly afraid. He respected the forces of nature. Like anything else, they weren’t frightening if you knew how to live alongside them. _I don’t know how you can abide the weather there_ , his father had remarked once in a letter. _Do tell me if you ever wish for a break from it. You are always welcome here._ One of many hints that Arthur missed his middle son dearly. Mathieu occasionally felt bad about his departure from England, but there was a time for putting oneself first, and he had come upon it.

He had been invited to the Edwards’s home for Christmas dinner. He’d written that they were neighbors to his father, whom he suspected would be shocked to find out that it took an hour to trudge to their house in the snow. It was worth the journey, even if he had to make the return trip by himself. Foamy eggnog, pork sweetened with brown sugar, mashed potatoes, he even ate the carrots despite his distaste for them. Truth be told, he could have been served a plate of withered apples and chicken bones and he would still have dined as if it were royal fare, because it was not the food that filled him, but the happy faces and laughter around the table that left a warm feeling in his stomach. There were four in the Edwards family, two daughters, one twelve and one fourteen. Both were clearly taken with Mathieu; their giggly blushes embarrassed him more than them. He was twenty-three now, something he could almost believe if he put his mind to it. Where had the time gone? Everyone was always saying that. It seemed to Mathieu that they were focusing on the wrong part of the equation. Of course the time was gone; everything left sooner or later. What was more important was what had happened while it was there.

The Edwards father had helped Mathieu build his cottage. Small, just a box of logs, really. But it was a brutally human affair, as everything was out here; striving for survival, everything rough and wild. Mathieu sometimes imagined his father here, spirited from the London cobbles and dropped headlong into the snowfields. His father was nearly fifty now, but that hardly mattered in this hypothetical. Out of his prime or in, Arthur Kirkland would flounder and sink in this unforgiving land. Mathieu had grown rather rugged in his year here. _Home_. The word fit comfortably. Just a shame it was so far from his family.

Mathieu glanced at the open book propped at the other end of his small table. A collection of English verse, another gift from his father. Richard Lovelace, on this particular page. With a name like that, it seemed to Mathieu, a man couldn’t be much other than a poet. He rather liked this one. (“ _Why should you swear I am forsworn/since thine I vowed to be?”_ ) They were all about loving women, of course. Even if a man had the courage to write about loving another, it would never be allowed to be read. Mathieu sighed again. It wasn’t heartbreak, not anymore. His heart had been broken, set, and healed. Now it was just a dull ache, worse in the cold. _That would make a good poem_.

Despite the melt of spring outside, Mathieu’s thoughts lingered in the cold. Not this winter, but one eight years ago, in London. He’d left the house in the country the same week Kuma died. His companion, lost to the merciless race of time. He hoped the dog was happy in heaven. (Marianne and Arthur both assured him, as a child, that dogs went to heaven. _Digging bones all day long_ , Marianne said. _The bones of dead people?_ Mathieu asked, more surprised than anything. Marianne looked at Arthur in startled disgust, but the Englishman had just laughed, appreciating the dark humor of it. Mathieu joined him in this appreciation now, belated and from a poetic standpoint. Could he bring himself to write a verse about his old friend digging for death? No, no, far too macabre.) Marianne, Antonio, and Peter had been disappointed to lose Mathieu to the city. It had been nearly a year since _the incident_ —as they had taken to calling it, no one willing to voice the offending name—and Mathieu’s voice had come back only slightly, but enough to make his wishes known: _I’m going to live with Father._ No one protested, not even Marianne. He’d heard Antonio talking to her about, later. _Can you blame him? This is where it happened. He’s always reminded of it._ Which was true, but not in the way the Spaniard was thinking.

 _A pleasant surprise, lad_ , Arthur had said when Mathieu showed up on the mansion’s doorstep. No one made the slightest reference to what had happened. Some may have been offended by the lack of coddling after such hardship, but to Mathieu it was refreshing. Everyone in the country house danced around him as if afraid to acknowledge his existence and, by extension, the terrible thing they believed had happened. That, combined with all the words trapped inside him, made him feel completely invisible. No such issue at the Kirkland Mansion. His grandmother was her usual self—an aging puppet in nice dresses—and his uncles were semi-present jokesters, always welcome for their ridiculous stories if nothing else. And Amelia, of course, was delighted to have Mathieu living there. She filled the role Kuma had left open, following Mathieu and providing assistance where needed—in her case, the assistance came as sensing what he wanted to say and speaking for him, as well as frightening tall men off if they came too close. (Mathieu did appreciate men keeping their distance, but, again, not for the reason Amelia was thinking.)

But the words inside him were jagged stones. He thought time trapped within would smooth them, like a rushing river, but instead they sliced the vulnerable things within him, and he found himself waking up to a pillow wet with tears each morning. The pain grew worse each day, until it reached its agonizing peak—rather fittingly—at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Sitting beside his father, watching holy candles flicker as the choir sang, he felt his eyes overflow with tears. Arthur must have heard his snuffling as he tried desperately to hide his outpouring of misery, because he turned his head and regarded his son with those vibrant green eyes. Father and son were both exhausted, but that did nothing to lessen the bright beauty of their eyes. Mathieu expected harsh judgement—a man could not cry in public, _obviously_ —but Arthur simply reached into his coat and produced a finely knitted handkerchief, which Mathieu took gratefully and wiped his face dry as quickly as he could. He handed it back without considering how unsanitary it might seem, but Arthur just gave a crooked, amused smile and tucked it back into his pocket.

When they got home, the ladies went off to bed, but Mathieu lingered downstairs. He saw his father go into the parlor and followed slowly, watching him from the doorway. Arthur eased himself down on the rolled-arm sofa, sighing softly, and leant forward to do some delicate preparations on the table (the candlelight was too weak for Mathieu to make them out) before sitting back and placing a tobacco pipe between his lips.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Mathieu said, voice raspy with disuse.

Normally, it may have given Arthur a fright, but his fatigue gave him composure. He simply raised an unreadable gaze to Mathieu and lowered the pipe, exhaling an opaque cloud that seemed to crawl under the table. “Yes, well, I suspect there is quite a stock of information kept unknown between us.”

Normally, it may have given Mathieu a fright. He simply asked, “May I come in?”

The secret came out in a gush, bled from his mouth as though he’d stuck in a dagger. For some—for most—it would have been accepted about as well as such self-mutilation. He fully expected to be tossed out into the cold night (such was his ignorance, to think England _cold_ ). But Arthur didn’t falter. He didn’t look away from his son. His face didn’t change. He simply drew from his pipe, breathed the smoke away, and said, “I knew I would pass it on to at least one of my children.”

Secrets, it turned out, were like rabbits. They multiplied before you even realized it was possible. “But—” Mathieu struggled to find proper words. He didn’t want to waste any. “But you loved Mother.”

“I still do.” Arthur’s eyes were dark, weary. He looked older than he ever had, an elderly ghoul in the candlelight, a smokey statue of a man. “I always will. But there is more than one sort of love in this world. I dare say every relationship has its own version of love.”

Mathieu wanted desperately to ask about the intimate side of the marriage—did his father feel precisely as he did, the hunger for a man’s touch? But there was no way to discuss such things, simply no way. It was enough of a miracle for Arthur to admit the secret at all; Mathieu felt weak under the weight of the admission. From his father, it was far more than it seemed. He felt as though he knew Arthur closely, closer than he’d ever thought possible. And, proof more than anything that he was his father’s son, he said next, “I think I’ll go with Amelia when she crosses the Atlantic.”

A younger Arthur would have protested. But the years of Marianne and the silent ridicule of the lords surrounding the divorce had taken the fight from him. His life seemed designed to defeat him in the end. (His small size, his mocking brothers, his indifferent mother, his cheating wife, his dead father, his long-ago boarding school companion, a boy he had not let himself think about for decades . . .) But he couldn’t hold it against his children. It wasn’t their fault his life was miserable, and he couldn’t ruin theirs as some convoluted attempt at recompense. He could only let them go and hope that they would lead happy lives elsewhere and maybe, just maybe, come back to see him before he dropped dead.

So Arthur set his pipe down on the table, wrapped his arms around his son, and embraced him tightly. He pressed a light kiss to his son’s temple and murmured, “Stay long enough to finish an English education. Times are changing, lad. Education protects men like us from the brutes of the world.”

Amelia had agreed to wait for Mathieu to finish his studies. He’d been uncertain what route to take, and had settled with focusing on literature. Perhaps that was his motivation for being a poet. But he had always appreciated beautiful things, and, as a listener, he was skilled with the subtleties of words. Eight years later, Arthur had seen his son and daughter off, embracing them both with misty eyes. Amelia had wept, as well. _I’ll visit, I promise,_ she told him. He just smiled, light and melancholy as a wilting blossom. _I look forward to it, my silly goose._

They said no goodbyes to Marianne, Antonio, or Peter. Mathieu couldn’t stand to face them again. He was a coward, the worst coward. He didn’t deserve the mercy of his father, but he was grateful for it. A hateful man in Arthur’s position would not have rested until the man who had raped his son was put to the gallows. But Arthur understood in a way no one else could. He sent men to search for the Prussian, of course; people would spread hideous rumors if he didn’t. But it was only the bare minimum. He spared Mathieu the nightmare of watching a loved one die (though no one had spared him from Kuma). Mathieu never wrote to his mother, despite his father’s notes that _She’s been asking about you._ He kept telling himself that the next time he wrote to his father, he would put in a letter to be sent to the house in the country. But he never brought himself to do it. He couldn’t, because every draft he began started the same way: _You ruined everything. You took him from me. You tore out my heart._

Amelia quickly found a strong American man to court. He could pick her up with one arm and their two boys with the other, or so she claimed in her letters. _(Very bearish, I think Father would hate him, but that’s rather the appeal, isn’t it?)_ Mathieu had ventured north before Amelia was wed, or he would have been there for the celebrations. A shame they were so scattered, and yet it felt right somehow. Like they had been meant to be so far apart, all along.

Mathieu got up from his table and botched poetry attempts. He needed a break from the blank pages and the unwanted thoughts they manifested. Outside, the air was cleaner, so incredibly pristine. The reek of London gaslights was a half-forgotten nightmare; this was reality, a biting sort of heaven. He so loved it here. _Home_. But if only . . . if only . . .

A clattering whistle; then the dark flutter of a bird landing on his woodpile. His automatic smile at the wonder of nature faltered as he recognized this particular part for what it was. Dark feathers that glinted a hidden, secret green in the sunlight. The very bird he’d been watching the day Antonio and Gilbert came. His Prussian lion, sent from on high. Mathieu choked on his tears and brought both hands to his face, heaving ugly sobs. The starling tilted its head, regarding him as if he was a very strange creature indeed, then spread its small wings and fluttered away, still singing. Its song was so loud, in fact, that Mathieu almost didn’t hear the voice.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. What did I tell you about crying?”

Mathieu went so still it seemed even his heart stopped. The feeling, the most desperate, agonizing hope, set his chest afire. Then, an action he would question forever, he peeked between his fingers as though he was a little boy again, faced with a monster spawned by his imagination.

Gilbert Beilschmidt stood before him, ashen hair gleaming white in the sun, crimson eyes warmed by a smile that, for once, held no mockery. He looked as he was: a man completely in love.

“You found me,” Mathieu whispered. He was afraid to move. He was afraid to acknowledge that this was happening. What if it was a dream? He never wanted to wake.

The Prussian nodded, amused. “You didn’t make it easy for me. What’s this Matthew Williams business?”

“I . . . it’s the name I use here. I didn’t want anyone to know who Father was, and treat me . . . differently because of it.” What were they talking about? How could they just be standing here, chatting as though it had only been a month since they had last seen each other, as if they had parted on friendly terms? As if this was not an impossibility—a miracle, a bloomin’ _miracle_ —that they were even having this conversation?

Mathieu couldn’t take it, had no reason to take it. He threw himself at Gilbert with the same desperate need of a man afire diving into water. The Prussian staggered a little under his weight—he was not a petite fifteen-year-old anymore, and Gilbert wasn’t exactly getting younger, either—but he stayed upright, and the pair of them wrapped their arms around each other tight enough to hurt. Mathieu soaked happy tears into the collar of Gilbert’s coat, and Gilbert kissed Mathieu’s golden curls, and Mathieu could say only, “You found me. You found me.”

“Don’t sound surprised.” Gilbert cupped his lightly bristled cheek—both of them needed a shave—and leaned down so their noses brushed. “I promised to keep you safe, didn’t I?” His lips spread in a cutting smile, the kind only Mathieu was immune to. “I’m a man of my word.”

Their kiss did not let the negative truths affect it. It didn’t matter to them, while they kissed, that they would never be able to have children. It didn’t matter that they could not grow old together. It didn’t matter that Mathieu could never bring Gilbert home to his family.

All that mattered was the warmth of the sun, the song of the starlings, and the soft but firm union of their lips as they kissed, and kissed some more, then embraced each other again, both of them sighing in relieved contentment. Their hearts had been broken in the past, and fractures still remained, and would always be there. Still, they had found happiness. Against all odds, the stars had allowed them a joy that, though it would not last forever, would echo onward, past their bodies’ inevitable expiration, through the generations, at times forgotten, stowed away among the relics, then lifted back into knowledge one fateful decade, a serendipity.

 

. . .

 

It ended, as it tended to do, with a boy and a girl.

She was sitting on a bench in a beautiful park called Jardin des Champs-Élysées, none of which she could even begin to pronounce. Her face was severe—sharp green eyes, blond hair ironed into straight submission, lips pressed into a stern pink line—with an expression made all the more serious by the black frames of her glasses. She wore the plaid skirt, white blouse, and kneesocks of a schoolgirl. Her leather bag sat on the bench beside her, stuffed with dictionaries and textbooks and homework. She was an excellent student—excellent enough to secure a position studying abroad, in any case—but her French needed work. Still, she knew enough to understand when a man sat down beside her and said, _“Bonjour, belle femme.”_

She looked up, bristling, and spoke in a snappish tone that was sure to cross any language barrier that existed. “I’m not interested in any ridiculous French flirting or—”

She stopped, because something about him looked familiar. Not the handsome jaw, furred with just the right amount of stubble. Not the seductive smirk that fit so well on those kissable lips. Certainly not the waves of blond hair that were nearly as long as hers (until now, she had not considered that long hair could be attractive on a man). No, it was those eyes that made her falter. The blue of the ocean, sparkling just for her.

“Are you . . .” She let that question trail off into nothing, then began again, enunciating slowly, “Do I know you?”

The Frenchman leant his elbow on the back of the bench, cheek resting against his hand, eyelids lowering halfway in a look of weary amusement. With exaggerated slowness and less of an accent than she expected, he replied, “Not . . . yet.”

She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him for mocking her, but the feeling of familiarity lingered insistently enough that she hazarded another question. “What’s your name?”

“Francis.” He lifted his leg up so his ankle rested on his opposite knee. He could not look more comfortable in his own skin unless he was lounging here naked. (The thought made a blush rise from under her collar.) _“Et tu?”_

“Alice.” She didn’t offer a hand, because she knew full well that he would try to kiss it. The French were always kissing each other; she wondered how they prevented an epidemic of cold sores.

Francis nodded to the open book on her lap. “What are you reading?”

Alice glanced down at the yellowed pages. She’d taken as much care of the book as possible, and had been reluctant to take it along on her journey across the Channel. But it was her security blanket. Her grandmother had read the poems to her as a child, and had passed down the book when she died. It had been old back then; it was ancient now. The publication information on the first page claimed it had been printed in 1932, but the words themselves had been written decades— _centuries_ —before. Sometimes Alice appreciated the texture of history more than the words themselves.

“Poetry,” Alice replied, as if it could ever be as simple as that. “By Matthew Williams. _The Mouse and The Lion_.”

Francis regarded her thoughtfully. “Read some.”

“Why?” she asked, ever suspicious.

“So I can decide if I should kiss you.”

She glared at him for the second time in ten minutes. “You won’t be kissing anything if you carry on like that. Do you think you sound charming? You sound sleazy.”

He simply laughed as though she was delightful entertainment and waved a hand toward the pages. “Read.”

She could have gotten up and walked away. But those eyes had her lifting the book closer to her face and reading in her crisp cut-glass accent,

 

_To others, they may seem destined_

_To end in blood and loss_

_But the mouse and the lion know ’tis not so._

_For those with such differences_

_Know which lines to cross_

_And thus they allow their love to grow._

 

Francis feigned a yawn, and grinned when she shoved his shoulder. “So stiff. Is all English poetry like this? No romance, no sex?”

Her cheeks burned at the word. “It’s from the eighteenth century. Of course there’s no sex.”

“Hm. Too bad.” He leaned closer, so close she could smell the honey of his breath. “I’d still like to kiss you.”

She went to push him away, but then she tripped and fell into the pools of his blue, blue gaze. She was drowning. _Oh, no. I can’t fall in love. I can’t_ —

Green met blue.  Time itself almost trembled, but caught itself. It had done this before.

“Let’s start with tea first,” she found herself saying.

He stood up, face even more handsome when it was lit with that triumphant smile. “ _Oui._ Let’s.” He offered her his hand.

Alice closed the book without a second thought for the Kirklands, the Bonnefoys, the pirates, the dog, the words, nor even the all-knowing stars.

Then the girl twined her fingers with the boy’s and they started it all over again.

 

_The End._


End file.
